In the past half a year mobile industry has experienced turbulent time of great market changes. When the year started Nokia was still committed to developing Qt-based Symbian and Meego ecosystem, Google backed Android was the preferred choice for the market challengers, and the Apple iPhone was unchallenged industry benchmark. The era of change started when Nokia abandoned its own development efforts and made a deep alliance with Microsoft to adopt Windows Phone as its sole smartphone platform, leaving both Symbian and Meego dead in the water. At the same time Android manufacturers gained momentum while Apple stalled and Nokia lost ground, making it seem that in the near future smartphone market was going to be divided in three camps: Apple iPhone, Google lead Android group, and Microsoft-Nokia. This all changed when Google acquired Motorola Mobility.
While Google informed the public that its acquisition of Motorola Mobility was defensive, that its intention was to obtain patents to defend the Android ecosystem, that it would retain Motorola Mobility as independent subsidiary, that it would treat equally all Android vendors, it is hard to believe that this state of affairs would continue for long. Google made a massive investment and its investors will sooner or later demand results from the management, and from the management the only way to obtain them is to become a vertically integrated company, imitating Apple. Not to mention that in large organizations there is always massive inertia to favor home grown solutions, even if the upper management tries to maintain neutrality with users of Android, the human factor, middle managers and developers inside Google-Motorola will pull and give flavors to each other’s. The simple fact at the end of the day is that due to acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the playground isn't level anymore and by time it will become even less so.
So what is next? Apple doesn't license IOS and with Microsoft the playground isn't even due to Microsoft working closely in deep partnership with Nokia. Fortunately there is a choice that mobile vendors can and should take, that choice is Meego. While Nokia did more or less abandon Meego, Intel continued to push forward and invest into it. It is a production ready mobile OS that is thoroughly modern, easy to develop and adopt. By adopting Meego as one of the used smartphone platforms in their offerings, device manufactures gain by..
..Having leverage against Google and Microsoft. Leverage is needed because both Google and Microsoft have in the past made it clear that they are in charge of their platforms, dictating more or less the terms of usage to manufacturers. They also have taken the freedom of favoring one device manufacturer to further their own goals. To ensure more fair and equal treatment, vendors need to have the nuclear option to threaten abandoning both platforms if needed, this threat should allow manufacturers to gain concessions to modify platforms, but also gain more favorable financial terms to license Android or Windows Phone.
..Allowing deep alliance with network service operators. Since the dawn of mobile networks, service operators have had one single goal, to be something more than just a pipe of bytes. They want their customers to select them not because of their pipes, but because of the unique features and services that they offer as part of their larger customer experience. With Apple, Microsoft and Google the problem is that they offer their own standardized customer experience, leaving operators to be commoditized pipe providers. This creates tremendous opportunities for device manufacturers to ally with service operators to create unique customer experiences, for example operator specific user interfaces that interwove services into tightly packed offering. In case where this co-operation leads to a hit product, benefits are more than clear. It should also again be mentioned that operators to need and want leverage against Google, Apple and Microsoft, which itself makes the business case worthwhile enough.
..Enabling product and brand differentiation via software. The big problem that all major phone manufacturers of today are trying to solve is to how to be different and how to maintain that difference once it is found. Designs can be easily copied or imitated. User interface is the same across the multiple vendors who use the same operating system. Hardware components and technology are the same and used by multiple vendors, buzz words changing from Retina Display and Super AMOLED to Clear Black Display, for the customer it is more or less the same, better than normal displays. The only way to clearly obtain differentiation is via creation of unique software offerings. The only platform that in the future offers this is Meego.
In my honest opinion, there is a very strong case for mobile device manufacturers to make use of Meego. While I don't think that any device manufacturer at this point should commit them solely to it, they should take the option for obvious strategic reasons, as a life insurance, but also as a way to move forward in the ever changing mobile market.
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