On 03/31/2013 03:00 AM, turquoiseb wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "card" <cardemaister@...> wrote: >> http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/06/vote-for-the-2012-engadget-awards/?cid=nokiacom-fw-emc-bdy-smc-1303engad4-dmc-fi-fi-1tod12157a11d&uid=1-1F7ISDJ&campid=11189&Idate=130328 >> >> http://tinyurl.com/cc6hjf6 > Don't be silly; they didn't have to. Such polls are > participated in by nerds who don't have a life and > who tend to mistake the gadgets they play with *for* > one. They're as meaningless as asking people on FFL > who have done TM *and nothing else* for decades to > vote for "What is the best form of meditation." > > That said, and *not* sharing your fascination for > telephones and such gadgets, I am now working on a > cross-platform application development tool that > allows developers to "write once, build many times," > and thus support almost every mobile platform out > there. Almost. The one obvious missing OS/mobile > platform is Symbian. When I asked why, I already > knew the answer; the company (a rather large one, > with a rather global view of the market) doesn't > feel that either Symbian or Nokia has a future.
It's going to be next to impossible to beat Android because if you wanted to start your own cellphone or tablet company you can simply have your engineers implement Android, which is free, on top of embedded Linux (also free). It probably isn't even near rocket science. So Android handsets have exploded onto the market. Even if Microsoft were to offer their OS for free for manufacturers they are years behind Android. Symbian and Nokia were left in the dust some time ago. Why? Probably because they put bean counters in the chairman's seat and they seldom understand the industry. They apply MBA theory and the industry is way too dynamic for that stodgy approach. Regarding your company, one way to win in that field is to have two levels of implementation. Some developers will want to create complex apps so will need to learn your whole system but a lot of apps can be created with a much simpler API that might take a couple days to learn. I think most of these companies miss the boat on the latter. One thing is that Android had more buttons in hardware when it came out. Most devices now have them on screen in software these days but the smart thing would have been to design your app as if it were on the iPhone (one button) then it would be easier to port across devices. In fact Google even started suggesting that.
