How the Changing PDA Marketplace Affects Mobile Application Platforms

 

Over the last few years the choice and capability of smart phones available to use for a mobile working platform have blossomed. Back in 2005 the most suitable devices ran PalmOS on both rugged and consumer handsets, but since then a large ecosystem of different suppliers has extended the market and now provide a wide range of devices.

In the last 12 months the big winner has been Android – moving from a 5% market share in the summer of 2010, to a massive 50% share by October 2011. This dominance means that you can now get a device with a price to suit your pocket from both network providers and high street phone shops.

What these general consumer statistics hide is the dominance of Windows Mobile 6 in the rugged handheld market. At the moment nearly all IP rated handheld devices are running Windows Mobile 6, with only minimal penetration of Windows 7. The other operative systems – Blackberry, iPhone and Android - currently have almost no market share in the rugged device space and rely on clever third party solutions like Otterbox Defender cases to provide protection from dust, moisture, scratches and drops.

We have seen these two facts – the rise of Android, and the dominance of Microsoft for rugged PDAs – have an interesting impact on our own customers over the last few months. We released our mobile solution to run on Android in the spring following pressure from existing customers, but take up was initially slow as they were all running with existing Windows Mobile devices. However, since the summer we have seen a phenomenal growth of Android, and a corresponding drop in support for Windows Mobile.

Talking to our customers it seems that price and availability of devices has been an important factor in this migration. Although they desire IP rated devices for their engineers the sheer performance and reliability of Android mean that they are making the migration to cheaper consumer-grade devices with the understanding that they may have to replace handsets more frequently. As well as getting additional features and a smoother user interface, all our Android customers are reporting dramatic performance improvements.

Commenting on the new platform, Darren McLeod of Heatcare Oil and Gas said, "Android seems to be performing a lot better than Windows mobile, Epix runs smoother and quicker." Whilst over at T.F. Jones their Managing Director, Mark Jones, was pleased with the move to Android and said, "It just works, there have been no problems."

For those companies who still need rugged and tough devices we expect that throughout next year we will see the introduction of rugged Android solutions, with plenty of rumours coming from our own suppliers! There are already after-market solutions using Android, for example Go4Mobility in the Netherlands who are offering Android on the Skeye range of devices. This would suggest full Android support from manufactures will be coming soon.

By Ian, November 23rd, 2011.