Prepare for the Mobile OS war

[Colin Dunstan]

Tony from The Register has the scoop on two Gartner analysts, Nick Jones and John Girard, who predict big trouble for Symbian when the "Beast of Redmond" finally releases its Magneto release of Windows Mobile some time in Q3-Q4 2005.

Jones believes that the lead Symbian currently enjoys as a smartphone OS will evaporate when Magneto finally appears. Magneto will effectively fix the bugs and fill the holes in the current version of Windows for Smartphones. That will mean the difference between the two offerings will be largely down to marketing - an area where the Beast of Redmond is acknowledged to enjoy a lead. The Beast will portray its offering as the obvious choice for corporate users.

According to the Gartner team Research In Motion (RIM) doesn't have good cards either because of the latter's failed attempt to deliver adequate software tools for J2ME.

And what about Palm OS? Cobalt? The future fusion of Palm OS with Linux? I was looking for a second page in this scoop, but there is none. Could it be perhaps that the two industry analysts have already given up the Palm platform?