[hebehebe]

Nokia's MeeGo, Blackberry's BBOS, Samsung's Tizen... None of them could become widespread...

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Proable fortunate that there isn't just one....

[johnny_bravo72]

Survival of the fittest.

[Troy Tiscareno]

How many commercially successful desktop OSs have their been since 1985?

Survey says: 2.

Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. There are a number of also-rans, but none that ever reached 10% of the market or lasted more than 5 or 6 years.

Why? Simple: it costs a LOT of money to develop software, and developing the same app for a different platform costs about as much as developing for the first platform in most cases. Developers need to support at least 2 platforms in order to maintain pressure on the OSs to keep moving forward with standards and features, and also to reach the majority of the market - but rarely does it make financial sense to support a third.

The exact same dynamic exists with mobile OSs. There were only ever going to be 2 winners - if you weren't in 1st or 2nd place, you were irrelevant.

Let's say it costs $500k to develop your app for one platform. You develop for iOS and get 13% of the market, but that entire 13% is the top of the market (people with money who will pay for your product). You pay another $500k to develop for a second platform: Android, with 86% of the market. You now have 99% market coverage by supporting 2 platforms.

What's the justification for spending ANOTHER $500k to support WinPhone, and ANOTHER $500k to support BB10? To get a couple tenths of a percent of the market - most of whom probably already dual-carry a phone that you already support? That expense can't be justified, and that's why there are only 2 platforms that matter.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

How many commercially successful desktop OSs have their been since 1985?

Survey says: 2.

Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. There are a number of also-rans, but none that ever reached 10% of the market or lasted more than 5 or 6 years.

Why? Simple: it costs a LOT of money to develop software, and developing the same app for a different platform costs about as much as developing for the first platform in most cases. Developers need to support at least 2 platforms in order to maintain pressure on the OSs to keep moving forward with standards and features, and also to reach the majority of the market - but rarely does it make financial sense to support a third.

The exact same dynamic exists with mobile OSs. There were only ever going to be 2 winners - if you weren't in 1st or 2nd place, you were irrelevant.

Let's say it costs $500k to develop your app for one platform. You develop for iOS and get 13% of the market, but that entire 13% is the top of the market (people with money who will pay for your product). You pay another $500k to develop for a second platform: Android, with 86% of the market. You now have 99% market coverage by supporting 2 platforms.

What's the justification for spending ANOTHER $500k to support WinPhone, and ANOTHER $500k to support BB10? To get a couple tenths of a percent of the market - most of whom probably already dual-carry a phone that you already support? That expense can't be justified, and that's why there are only 2 platforms that matter.

Thing is there was a time when BB and MSFT had some market share. They just didn't see how quickly the market was changing, and took too long to make adjustments. And put no effort into really keeping existing users engaged.

It would be like Google saying Android P is their last version of Android, going forward they'll use Fuchsia but it won't be compatible with Android. Users can't update an Android Phone to Fuchsia and Android Apps won't work on Fuchsia.... that's what BlackBerry and Microsoft did essentially (MSFT did it over and over).

If QNX had been this tiny but powerful OS that could have ran on and updated older BBOS phones..... if they had built a BBOS Runtime.... and if they had done all this five years earlier....

[kvndoom]

Another one of THESE threads. Here we go again.

Let me get the summary of ensuing comments out of the way in advance:

1) evil Google conspiracy
2) evil Apple conspiracy
3) hundreds of millions of phone buyers are all idiots and don't know what's best for them (but crackberry posters do)
4) IOS and Android are only good for fart apps. real work can only be done on phones with < 0.5% of the market
5) phones don't need an ecosystem to prosper, only marketing
6) John Chen is the antichrist

Did I miss any?

[thurask]

Another one of THESE threads. Here we go again.

Let me get the summary of ensuing comments out of the way in advance:

1) evil Google conspiracy
2) evil Apple conspiracy
3) hundreds of millions of phone buyers are all idiots and don't know what's best for them (but crackberry posters do)
4) IOS and Android are only good for fart apps. real work can only be done on phones with < 0.5% of the market
5) phones don't need an ecosystem to prosper, only marketing
6) John Chen is the antichrist

Did I miss any?

7) [Markov chain of random misunderstood tech buzzwords] and that's why BB10 can come back

[joeldf]

7) [Markov chain of random misunderstood tech buzzwords] and that's why BB10 can come back

"Hypervisor can solve all our problems"

[brookie229]

commercially successful desktop OSs have their been since 1985?

Keyword here, of course, is commercial. There are around 80 million estimated Linux desktop users by estimate. But it is a viable 3rd OS (for some).

[Troy Tiscareno]

Keyword here, of course, is commercial.

Absolutely right!

There are around 80 million estimated Linux desktop users by estimate. But it is a viable 3rd OS (for some).

Linux is a special case. It enjoys massive amount of funding from big companies (Google, Apple, IBM, Amazon, etc.) who use it for servers, but that work trickles down to the desktop version. Plus, it's open-source so hobbyists can also work on it. Linux isn't "owned" by a commercial company, which means it isn't making anyone a ton of money (by itself). But without its utility as a server OS, and the funding that results, Linux would probably have closer to 800,000 desktops instead of 80M.

And even with 80M, lots of major apps that are available on other platforms aren't available on Linux. Often something similar is available, but usually without the full functionality of a commercial app.

There is really no equivalent in the mobile space, and mobile has even more challenges.

[hebehebe]

Another one of THESE threads. Here we go again.

Let me get the summary of ensuing comments out of the way in advance:

1) evil Google conspiracy
2) evil Apple conspiracy
3) hundreds of millions of phone buyers are all idiots and don't know what's best for them (but crackberry posters do)
4) IOS and Android are only good for fart apps. real work can only be done on phones with < 0.5% of the market
5) phones don't need an ecosystem to prosper, only marketing
6) John Chen is the antichrist

Did I miss any?

Google and Apple are cartel and they don't let anyone in.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Google and Apple are cartel and they don't let anyone in.

That falls under #1 and #2 .....

[glwerry]

Absolutely right!



Linux is a special case. It enjoys massive amount of funding from big companies (Google, Apple, IBM, Amazon, etc.) who use it for servers, but that work trickles down to the desktop version. Plus, it's open-source so hobbyists can also work on it. Linux isn't "owned" by a commercial company, which means it isn't making anyone a ton of money (by itself). But without its utility as a server OS, and the funding that results, Linux would probably have closer to 800,000 desktops instead of 80M.

And even with 80M, lots of major apps that are available on other platforms aren't available on Linux. Often something similar is available, but usually without the full functionality of a commercial app.

There is really no equivalent in the mobile space, and mobile has even more challenges.

Even with it being a special case, it's still a good example - I tried Linux for a while.
I believe I was using the Red Hat distro - it was really quite good to set up, but after a while I went back to Windows because there were a couple of utilities that I could not find in the Linux world.

That's very much parallel to my BB10 -> 'Droid experience: I had a Classic but could not get Google Hangouts working on it, despite the fine work of people who had done the work-around.
I needed that for work and so I made the jump to a PRIV and have not looked back.

[glwerry]

Absolutely right!



Linux is a special case. It enjoys massive amount of funding from big companies (Google, Apple, IBM, Amazon, etc.) who use it for servers, but that work trickles down to the desktop version. Plus, it's open-source so hobbyists can also work on it. Linux isn't "owned" by a commercial company, which means it isn't making anyone a ton of money (by itself). But without its utility as a server OS, and the funding that results, Linux would probably have closer to 800,000 desktops instead of 80M.

And even with 80M, lots of major apps that are available on other platforms aren't available on Linux. Often something similar is available, but usually without the full functionality of a commercial app.

There is really no equivalent in the mobile space, and mobile has even more challenges.

Even with it being a special case, it's still a good example - I tried Linux for a while.
I believe I was using the Red Hat distro - it was really quite good to set up, but after a while I went back to Windows because there were a couple of utilities that I could not find in the Linux world.

That's very much parallel to my BB10 -> 'Droid experience: I had a Classic but could not get Google Hangouts working on it, despite the fine work of people who had done the work-around.
I needed that for work and so I made the jump to a PRIV and have not looked back.

[Soulstream]

Even with it being a special case, it's still a good example - I tried Linux for a while.
I believe I was using the Red Hat distro - it was really quite good to set up, but after a while I went back to Windows because there were a couple of utilities that I could not find in the Linux world.

That's very much parallel to my BB10 -> 'Droid experience: I had a Classic but could not get Google Hangouts working on it, despite the fine work of people who had done the work-around.
I needed that for work and so I made the jump to a PRIV and have not looked back.

But the cases for which Linux has some advantages are in-existent in the mobile space:
- server OS: of course you don't use a smartphone OS for server
- OS used for developers due to powerful CLI tools: you don't use your phone to code
- it's free

Had Linux not been useful for servers and a powerful tool for developers, it would have gone the way of BB10.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

But the cases for which Linux has some advantages are in-existent in the mobile space:
- server OS: of course you don't use a smartphone OS for server
- OS used for developers due to powerful CLI tools: you don't use your phone to code
- it's free

Had Linux not been useful for servers and a powerful tool for developers, it would have gone the way of BB10.

I guess in a way Android started out as just another "free" Linux Distribution....

[co4nd]

Whose this "They" you speak of?

[co4nd]

Another one of THESE threads. Here we go again.

Let me get the summary of ensuing comments out of the way in advance:

1) evil Google conspiracy
2) evil Apple conspiracy
3) hundreds of millions of phone buyers are all idiots and don't know what's best for them (but crackberry posters do)
4) IOS and Android are only good for fart apps. real work can only be done on phones with < 0.5% of the market
5) phones don't need an ecosystem to prosper, only marketing
6) John Chen is the antichrist

Did I miss any?

You missed

The US government covertly sabotages any non US made operating system.

[kvndoom]

Whose this "They" you speak of?

Why, Amos 'n' Andy IOS and Android, of course.

[Chuck Finley69]

7) [Markov chain of random misunderstood tech buzzwords] and that's why BB10 can come back

Neutrino blah, ............. yadda, blah, thermonuclear inversion, blah, etc... tektronic shifter, 512 bit flux capacitors

[johnny_bravo72]

Neutrino blah, ............. yadda, blah, thermonuclear inversion, blah, etc... tektronic shifter, 512 bit flux capacitors

Flux capacitor? Great Scott!!

[Soulstream]

I guess in a way Android started out as just another "free" Linux Distribution....

In a way, Android was too ahead of its time and that was actually an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. Android was, from the beginning, the mobile OS where you could do anything with it, customize it in 1000 different ways, multitask in a way other mobile OSs of the time couldn't etc. Only one problem with it, it was "too powerful" for the hardware of the time to handle it. It took a few good years for the hardware to catch up and Google actually building some limitations into the OS itself, for Android to become more polished.

But those first years, gave Android the bad name of "Lagdroid".

[katxeus]

Wish mergers worked in such eco systems but can't unfortunately !

Posted via CB10

[Golfdriver97]

Not sure about the rest, but Samsung was (and maybe still is) offering bonuses for Tizen development....that from what I understood, very few took the offer on. And to a degree, it makes sense. Why spend a fair amount of time developing an app/program for less than 10% of a given population? To add to that, not everyone in that percentile will install the app.

[GadgetTravel]

Whose this "They" you speak of?

Customers.