The Smartphone Wars: Nokia gives it up for Microsoft

It’s been quite a while since I wrote a Smartphone Wars post; I let the series lapse when I concluded that the source I was using for U.S. market share figures had likely disconnected from reality (and more recent surveys from other sources suggest I was right). But the developments of the last couple of… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Nokia gives it up for Microsoft

The Smartphone Wars: The Limits of Lawfare

It’s beginning to look like Apple’s legal offensive against Android might backfire on it big-time. Comes the news that Judge Koh has declined to suppress evidence that Apple may have copied crucial elements of the iPad design from prototypes developed by Knight-Ridder and the University of Missouri in the mid-1990s.

The Smartphone Wars: Tomi Ahonen carpet-bombs Stephen Elop

The best strategic analysis of Nokia’s parlous position I’ve ever seen comes to us from ex-Nokia-executive and longtime company-watcher Tomi Ahonen: The Sun Tzu of Nokisoftian Microkia. It’s thorough, entertainingly written, and includes some instructive diversions into military history.

The smartphone wars: Inauspicious exits and debuts

RIM’s death rattle became audible a few days ago when its manufacturing partner announced that it would no longer be manufacturing Blackberries. And Nokia is entering the final stages of one of the most spectacular implosions in the history of business, taking the Windows phone down with it. So what’s Microsoft doing? Announcing a brand-spankin’-new… Continue reading The smartphone wars: Inauspicious exits and debuts

The Smartphone Wars: Oracle lawsuit’s final fizzle

OK, this is just weird. “Oracle agrees to ‘zero’ damages in Google lawsuit, eyes appeal” That vast lawsuit that, according to some idiots (including a few of my commenters), was going to destroy Android and sow the earth with salt in its wake? It’s done – but in a bizarre way that makes me question… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Oracle lawsuit’s final fizzle

The Smartphone Wars: Android loses share?

The April 2012 comscore results are out, and something very odd has happened. If they’re to be believed, Android has actually lost U.S. market share over the last three months – albeit by a statistically insignificant amount of 0.2% – for the first time in its history.

The smartphone Wars: Finally, Android breaks 50%

The newest comScore figures, for February 2012, are out. Android has finally achieved majority market share in the U.S.. This is three months later than a linear fit to most of 2010 and 20111 predicted, but whatever happened in 4Q2011 to throw everybody off their previous long-term trend curves seems to be over. Android, in… Continue reading The smartphone Wars: Finally, Android breaks 50%

The Smartphone Wars: Back to the Old Normal

It begins to look like the 2012 holiday-season was an anomaly. comScore’s new numbers (for Jan 2012) are out; Android is resuming its long-term growth rate after a temporary slowdown, and Apple’s market share actually dropped slightly.

The Smartphone Wars: CyanogenMOD Rising

CyanogenMOD, the third-party, fully-open, bloatware-free port of Android, has recently passed a million installs. And there’s talk of creating an underground Market app for CyanogenMOD to distribute apps that the cell carriers and the MPAA/RIAA don’t want you to have. Set this against Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil new Eula for iBooks, and it couldn’t… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: CyanogenMOD Rising

The Smartphone Wars: Dinosaurs mating?

Just when you thought the smartphone industry couldn’t get any more soap-operatic, everybody’s favorite pair of aging drama queens – Microsoft and Nokia – may be at it again. There’s a rumor, from a gossip with a good track record, that Microsoft intends to buy Nokia’s Smartphone division.

The Smartphone Wars: a bit of Christmas cheer

On Google+, Andy Rubin reports: “There were 3.7M Android activations on 12/24 and 12/25.” That’s a 170% spike over the 700K activations per-day Rubin announced on 20 Dec. I’ve previously observed that only about 1 in 10 of Android activations show up in the smartphone statistics for the U.S. so Android is probably looking at… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: a bit of Christmas cheer

The Smartphone Wars: Andy Rubin brings the news

Over on Google+, Andy Rubin says: There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don’t count re-sold devices), and “activations” means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service. This does… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Andy Rubin brings the news

The Smartphone Wars: Signs and Portents

The September comScore numbers are out, and the market transition hinted at by the June numbers seems to be under way. Growth in the U.S. smartphone market is slowing, and the flavor of the competitive game is about to change.