Sales of Linux- And Symbian-Based Handsets SoarSales of Linux- And Symbian-Based Handsets Soar

Sales of wireless devices with multiple capabilities will account for about 43 percent of all handset sales by 2008, according to a study released Monday by Zelos Group.

"The mass adoption of full-featured handsets will be disruptive," Seamus McAteer, senior analyst and managing partnerof Zelos Group and the report's author said in a statement. "Consumers will substitute use of PDAs, digital cameras, gaming consoles and music players."

The trend will be led by handset vendors like Nokia, but vendors of other types of portable devices will respond in kind, McAteer claimed.

"As handsets with multiple gigabytes of storage are launched in the next two or three years, it is possible to envision, for example, Hewlett-Packard launching an iPod with integrated W-CDMA transceiver and dual-use headset and speaker," McAteer said.

The report predicts that more these so-called full-featured handsets will ship in 2006 than personal computers. The Symbian OS will be the dominant platform for these devices in the short-term, the study predicts.

"But in the long term, the fight for supremacy is far from over," McAteer said.

In fact, McAteer predicted that Linux's long-term prospects for these devices are strong because it is inexpensive and developers like open source. Symbian is owned by a consortium of handset vendors including Nokia and Sony Ericsson. However, Palm and Microsoft also are working to gain a foothold in that market.

"Symbian beats Microsoft due to the flexibility of its licensing terms," McAteer said. "Microsoft's prospects will be stymied to an extent by its desire to strictly manage how its brand is used. Although we expect at least five million Windows mobile devices to ship in 2004, we find it doubtful that Microsoft will succeed in its stated goal of shipping over 100 million mobile devices running Windows in 2007."