Beancounters at IDC have come up with a somewhat strange prediction that Microsoft will come second to Android in the smartphone market.
For that to happen, Apple followers will have to suddenly have a realisation that Jobs' Mob's walled garden of delights is not all it's cracked up to be and would have to defect to the arch-enema of the Apple cargo cult – Steve Ballmer.
While we like to believe that such radical changes are possible in Western civilisation, we frankly see this prediction right up there with England winning the world cup and the London Olympics going just great.
IDC claims that in 2015, if the world has not been eaten by a giant star goat, Windows 7 will pass Apple iOS as the alternative operating system to Android. The way things are, our money is on the goat.
Android will have about half the market and what is left will be divided between Blackberry and Apple.
The report said that smartphone vendors will ship a total of more than 450 million smartphones this year, up from 303.4 million in 2010. IDC predicts that the smartphone market will grow four times faster than the overall handset market.
The figures for this year show how much of a mountain Ballmer has to climb to get to IDC's goal.
By the end of this year the Android platform will be tops, while Symbian will have 20.9 percent of the market. Then there will be Apple with 15.7 percent and BlackBerry with 14.9 percent. Vole has 5.5 percent of the market.
IDC seems to think that the Symbian market will transfer to Vole thanks to its deal with Nokia.
Hewlett-Packard's webOS platform will never manage more than 4.6 percent by 2015.
Apple followers can be reassured that IDC's long-term predictions are about as accurate as an earthquake prediction method which involves stroking the tummy of a hedgehog during full moon.
In 2006, IDC failed to predict the 2010 picture because it did not account for the rise of the iPhone or Android.
to the shy and retiring,
round-headed kid... Again.
The IDC report (link below) shows Symbian at 20.9% for 2011 and then magically 20.9% for 2015 allocated to WP7.
(notice the exact same % figure)
Seems like some genius researcher is claiming:
(1) Nokia share will remain static for 4 years (bit of a stretch)
(2) Every Nokia phone (currently Symbian) would be magically migrated (user choice aside) to being WP7.
(3) Huawei and ZTE will not eat into 20.9% of Nokia (a big stretch compared to what other analysts comment)
Maybe Microsoft just knocked another from their headcount by transferring him/her to IDC.
This kind of research with dumb assumptions, is bad enough from IDC, but for Forbes to quote it without printing the assumptions ... poor from Forbes.
Techeye rightly question the likelyhood, sounds a bit IDC daydreamy for sure.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/03/29/business-broadcasting-amp-entertainment-us-idc-smartphone-forecast_8380499.html
As for the leaving the "Jobs' Mob's walled garden of delights" to WP7...if your reason for leaving is that you don't like a walled garden, then I cannot see any real change by going WP7. It lacks any browser plugins, locks out Adobe totally (just like apple), and has restrictions on the licenses which can be used for code submissions.
If you are going to object to Apple, then your destination is unlikely to be the walled garden of WP7.