iPhone is the last 'must have' handset, says analyst

Stephen Withers
Monday, 30 June 2008 13:03

Business IT - Technology

Carriers may have been working hard to gain the rights to sell Apple's iPhone, but the idea of exclusive access to particular mobile phone handsets is on the way out, according to an analyst.

"In every market around the world we have seen headlines on feverish bidding by communications carriers to secure the rights to the iPhone," said Bruce McCabe, managing director of S2 Intelligence.

"Within three years, however, the notion of telecommunications companies trying to secure an advantage through exclusive rights to a handset will be dead."

McCabe points to three factors that will drive this change: Android (and similar relatively open platforms), virtualisation, and cloud computing.

I'll deal with what I think is the least important first.

Even though McCabe is looking three years ahead, I'm not sure that virtualisation will be a big deal. Firstly, the CPUs used in mobile handsets are relatively low performance parts. Virtualisation, especially where it is also necessary to emulate different hardware, is a big ask. And even if you want to run HTC's software on a iPhone or iPhone software on a Touch, why do you think the companies would allow it?

Doing the work in the cloud is going to be more significant, but we're not there yet. Look how much outcry there was when the original iPhone required that third-party applications be web-based rather than running directly on the handset.

What about virtualisation. and why do I think Android is the key to McCabe's argument? Please read on.