A new report from ABI about mobile Linux is getting a decent amount of press today, claiming that nearly a quarter of smartphones will be running Linux in 2013. That’s great, but… first, there’s no indication of what ABI considers to constitute the smartphone market, nor how big it is or will be in 2013.
Second, big kudos to Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM, who points out that less than a year ago, ABI said that 31% of smartphones would be running Linux in 2012. What to make of that change, that 25.8% decrease in market share estimates?
Not sure what the explanation is, but that’s a pretty hefty change. Also, if all the various flavors of mobile Linux — Android, LiMo, Palm, etc — are going to be different enough so as to be incompatible, is there any value in lumping them all together as one cohesive mobile Linux group?
Linux in the desktop world has a foot print that is growing in fits and bursts around one narrow vertical. Traditionally users who learn to navigate an OS always like to stay in the same vertical. MAC + IPOD, Windows + Windows mobile, UNIX + Android/ Limo etc, when given no choice they find the closest comparable interface. Perhaps the ABI projections are linked with the desktop penetration of UNIX over windows. Not a bad bet so long as the UNIX community creates and maintains industry exchange standards. That’s where the rubber meets the road for growth.
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. I am the author of the report.
The forecast penetration actually relates to high mid tier, smartphones and MIDs. Which really means that Linux will have a huge share of a far much larger pie than was previously forecast.
Although it still has challenges in the form of the new Symbian Foundation.
BR
Stuart
“is there any value in lumping them all together as one cohesive mobile Linux group”
No it’s not. That’s like lumping together all phones using ARM IPR CPUs (which pretty much all do by the way). See my comment to one of the Symbian posts.