Engadget转载的一篇很有趣的文章，讨论六大主流智能手机平台的。作者的观点认为Palm新进推出的WebOs可能是最后一款加入市场的智能手机操作系统了，因为对于小公司来说，新开发的系统很难得到手机制造商，网络运营商和程序开发商的足够支持而死于胎腹。虽然目前市场把Palm的WebOs当作一个新产品看待，我们却不能忽视Palm作为老牌的智能手机厂商所遗留下来的巨大资源，包括品牌，忠实用户和开发商。所以对于其他还没有拥有自己操作系统的手机厂商来说，现在加入战局或许为时已晚，或者成本太高，这也是SONY Ericsson,Samsung, Motorola等手机大厂宁愿选择Win Mobile和Android也不自己开发系统的原因。

作者认为最终决定智能手机平台生死的是软件开发商，就像80年代百花齐放的PC平台一样，最后只有微软的Windows和苹果的Mac存活到了现在，所以他进而认为六家智能手机平台对于这个市场来说太多了。对此我既赞成也保留质疑，我认为智能手机跟PC最大的区别在于它的易用性和便携性，也就意味着在智能手机平台上不会出现像PC上的Matlab和3D Max这样的大型软件，绝大部分应用程序都跟网络应用密切相关，也就意味着开发的难度并不像PC平台那么大。对于开发商来说，像iPhone这样的平台声势浩大，也不能只开发iPhone程序而忽视其他平台。关键是智能手机操作系统要尽可能的方便开发商，尽可能提供更开放和多元的功能，给予充分的空间去鼓励创新。

同时，智能手机对于新一代用户来说，不仅仅是PC一样的工作工具，更是日常生活元素的一部分，未来独立的照相机，钥匙，信用卡都会集成到智能手机里，那么对于全世界三十亿手机用户来说，难道消费者会满足于一两种系统平台么？就像我们不会只穿一种牌子的衣服或者鞋子，未来我们也不可能只用iPhone这样的操作系统。百花齐放仍是未来主流的趋势而且4G到来后，更强大的硬件性能会催生更多硬件平台和类似PC的功能，到时候的竞争还会更加激烈的。

Last week, fellow columnist Ross Rubin talked about the state of mobile platforms and how the era for launching new platforms has come to an end. I tend to take a different view of the mobile market. There are currently six major platforms vying for the hearts and minds of users and third party applications developers -- RIM's Blackberry, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Apple's iPhone, Nokia's s60, Palm's WebOS and Google's Android -- and there's simply no way the market will support that many device ecosystems. But there may yet be opportunity for other players to enter the market.

This is not a new phenomenon. In the early 80s there were a multitude of personal computing platforms. Atari, Commodore, Radio Shack, Texas Instruments, Apple and even Timex (yes, Timex) all were in the personal computing business, long before IBM entered the game. All survived for a period of time selling to an enthusiast market with a focus on out of the box featuresets. Once the target became the mass market, however, user expectations changed from the out of box experience (which essentially meant programming in Basic) to additional capabilities provided by third party software. The success or failure of each PC platform was decided in no small part by the availability of third party software. Exclusive titles, best of breed titles, and titles that appeared on a given platform first determined winners and losers. The same thing is happening today in the mobile space.

The first wireless email devices (which were the ancestors of today's mobile devices) focused only on the out-of-box experience they provided and the core feature of email (and later on, web browsing). Even though all platforms had some degree of third party support (most notably Palm and Microsoft) most non-enthusiast users did not bother with those apps. Of course, the iPhone and Apple's App Store have changed everything. Apple marketed the iPhone not only to the business professional and the enthusiast but to the mass market. In doing so, it positioned core device features like email, web browsing, and voice as table stakes in the smartphone market. The new differentiator isn't the device itself but the added features provided by third parties.

As with the personal computer, it's third party developers that are going to define which mobile platform wins and which loses.

More importantly, Apple provided a direct conduit for third parties to reach consumers through both iTunes as well as on the device. We've now seen efforts from the other five players to launch their own application stores and begin to reach out in greater ways to third party developers. As with the personal computer, it's these third party developers that are going to define which mobile platform wins wins and which loses. And like the personal computer space, six competing platforms will not all be able to gain sufficient traction to survive over the next three years. While we won't likely see a consolidated market with one overwhelming player as we did in the PC space (how that happened is another story for another day) we will likely see three platforms capturing the lion's share of the market with the rest slowly fading into the sunset along with TI/99a personal computer.

But that doesn't mean the market is closed. When Apple entered the market, there were many skeptics who said their effort was too little and too late. While there would be huge inertia working against any new entrant, we've seen from both Apple and Palm that new platforms can be launched effectively, capturing both mindshare as well as market share. While the PC industry is somewhat stagnating as both Microsoft and Apple prepare to launch new desktop OSes that are far more evolution than revolution, today's mobile platforms have dramatically upped the degree of functionality and capability. But none are perfect. There's plenty of room for innovation in the mobile marketplace -- someone will develop the next platform that leapfrogs the current generation. The question is whether it'll be one of the today's players or someone we've not heard from -- yet.