It is no secret that IOS and Android are running the show in the mobile OS market. With a market share of 86.1% and 13.7% for Android and IOS in the first quarter of 2017 respectively, other plaforms seem hopeless in their attempts to penetrate this duopoly. (statista.com, 2017)
Last Sunday Joe Belfiore, Vice president in the windows 10 operating system group at Microsoft, released a series of tweets. He announced on twitter that Microsoft will continue to support the mobile windows 10 platform via bug fixes and updates, but that developing new apps is not their main focus. In a following tweet Belfiore additionally stated that Microsoft tried very hard to incentivize developers to develop features for the platform, even going as far as offering money and writing apps for external developers, but that external companies were not willing to invest in developing apps for the platform due to its low user volume.
It seems evident that both IOS and Android have managed to create a powerful duopoly, fending off any form of competition. Apparently these two platforms have managed to leverage their cross-sided network effects to such an extent that even a company as powerful and resourceful as Microsoft fails to gain any meaningful form of market share, failing to even break the one percent market share barrier. (statista.com) Microsoft is no stranger to leveraging network effects in order to create a powerful platform, its windows desktop OS stands at a staggering 87.46% market share. (statista.com, 2017) With all the financial resources and undeniable technical know-how Microsoft has made a genuine effort opening up their platform and incentivizing external developers, but could not get their snowball rolling.
Microsoft is not the only large company who attempted to break the duopoly. Samsung Electronics released their Bada OS in April 2010 in an attempt to create their own proprietary platform, much like Apple. Blackberry Limited found a reasonable amount of success with their Blackberry OS, or RIM as it is often referred to. Reaching a market share as high as 20.7% in 2009, before dropping down to under 1% in 2013. (Statista.com, 2017) With Microsoft now more or less officially stating it fails to effectively compete, it begs the question who can.
Sources
Statista. (2017). Global mobile OS market share in sales to end users from 1st quarter 2009 to 1st quarter 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-share-held-by-smartphone-operating-systems/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].
Statista. (2017). Global operating systems market share for desktop PCs, from January 2013 to July 2016. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].
