[kdarling]

Originally Posted by hewlpac

It is real simple - People want their phones to work. Microsoft based phones need to be rebooted each day (sometimes more often) to function and that gets real annoying! Closed systems are perceived as more reliable.

I never had a WM Smartphone (no touch) that needed rebooting. I mostly rebooted touch WM phones only if I was trying out new software and hacks.

Apple got clever with the iPhone, and had it crash back to the Home screen when something goes wrong. They also don't let apps run in the background, in an attempt to crash less often. Unfortunately, while that gives the appearance of being more stable, it also means that users must go without software such as turn-by-turn nav apps.

There needs to be some middle ground.

[kdarling]

Originally Posted by hewlpac

It is real simple - People want their phones to work. Microsoft based phones need to be rebooted each day (sometimes more often) to function and that gets real annoying! Closed systems are perceived as more reliable.

I never had a WM Smartphone (no touch) that needed rebooting. I mostly rebooted touch WM phones only if I was trying out new software and hacks.

Apple got clever with the iPhone, and had it crash back to the Home screen when something goes wrong. They also don't let apps run in the background, in an attempt to crash less often. Unfortunately, while that gives the appearance of being more stable, it also means that users must go without software such as turn-by-turn nav apps.

There needs to be some middle ground.

[Kirkaiya]

Originally Posted by Pony99CA

I don't agree with the Fool's definitions. Open and Closed to me mean the source code, and Windows Mobile isn't "Open" (Android is).

I'd call things Loosely or Tightly Controlled. Apple and RIM tightly control the experience by developing both the hardware and software (I'll leave Nokia out for now because they're moving Symbian to open source). Microsoft loosely controls the experience by developing the software, but only setting minimum requirements on OEMs who develop the hardware. Google may control Android even more loosely (although I don't really know).

I suspect Palm's Nova will be tightly controlled, at least initially. Whether Palm will market the OS to other OEMs remains to be seen.

I definitely agree that the Fool's definitions are too broad and vague to be very meaningful. If anything, I'd say that the iPhone's hardware and OS are "tightly coupled" (along with RIM), while WinMo is only "loosely coupled", like Google's Android.

But - Android is open-source, and has already amassed a large number of active developers - especially considering that real hardware (the G1) has only been available for a few months. It's tough to see Palm's Nova competing with the hype that Google can bring (and the $$), but it seems unlikely. If they're smart, they'll provide a very comprehensive SDK and coddle whatever few Palm developers are left, and really try to lure more to the platform. Plus, since it's Linux under the hood, there are a ton of apps that can be easily ported (or might run "as is").

I think that Apple's model will work in the near-term (closed source, tightly coupled), and that the Android model can also work well (open source, loosely coupled), but that Microsoft's model (closed source, loosely coupled) is at the root of many of their problems. If Nova is open source (Linux), tightly coupled, it might have a shot.

"Open source" isn't a panacea, but in some areas, open-source software dominates: web-servers (Apache), set-top boxes like TiVo (Linux), low-end net-books (Linux again).

So Android is a bet, made by Google, that the same benefits open-source brings to *some* markets will be brought to handsets as well. And I think they have good (and increasingly so) odds of capturing a big chunk of the market for a few simple reasons:

(1) Unlike desktop OS'es, there is so single near-monopolistic market-leader. Nokia's share of the smartphone market has fallen below 50%, the iPhone, Blackberry, and WinMo devices all have double-digit market share, and the brand-new G1 is selling well.

(2) The smartphone market is just exploding compared to the desktop or notebook markets. Given this huge growth, even capturing 5% or 10% of the smartphone market will mean millions and millions of Android handsets.

(3) Smartphones are evolving at a frantic clip. Six or seven years ago, the category barely existed. The latest smartphones, on the other hand, are sporting powerful 32-bit CPUs, hi-rez displays, and general purpose operating systems that provide an ecosystem for software. This fast change lends itself to the thousands of people that contribute to open-source projects.

Micrsosoft, Microsoft.... what can you do? My advice: hire a few, brilliant people who truly "get" the future of MIDS/smartphones, and task them with developing what you need to create. Then hire the developers, architects and engineers that can make that vision reality. Make Windows Mobile 7 the LAST ITERATION of that line, and get it out the friggin door by next summer.

The future/vision version of the Microsoft smart device aka "MID" (or whatever) could either have a stripped-down kernal based on Windows 7, or not; but it needs to be a quantum leap more capable than the current iPhone, Android competition, and it needs to ship in Q1 of 2010. A lot can be done in 15 months - you've got the money, just hire the talent, starting with the vision of what you want the end to look like.

Otherwise - I think WinMo will drop below 10% share of smartphones by the end of this year, as Android, RIM, and Apple eat it's lunch.

[Pony99CA]

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

Don't think "open" and "closed" refer to source code only. For example, I think the universe is a closed system, not open. That has nothing to do with the source code of the universe.

I know the terms didn't refer to source code (the original article made it more or less clear what they meant); I just thought they were poorly chosen (as Kirkaiya also mentioned) and that, when used around geeks in conjunction with operating systems, people tend to think of "open source". That's why I didn't like their terminology.

By the way, the closed/open universe absolutely has to do with the source code of the universe (also known as the Laws of Physics).

Steve