software platforms Archives

Platform X: How cross-platform tools can end the OS wars

[Are cross-platform tools a better solution than HTML5 to the challenges of platform fragmentation? Guest author Jonas Lind reviews the landscape of cross-platform tools and argues that such tools may become as important as the native platforms themselves.]

The Android vs. iOS vs. Windows Phone platform battle has been the talk of the industry for the last year. But the market share battle between handset platforms might not be as critical for the industry as many believe.

A popular view in the industry is that the market is inevitably moving towards an Apple-Google duopoly. Apple’s app store has more than 400,000 apps. Android is growing quickly from a base of more than 250,000 apps and is predicted to catch up with Apple later this year. Nearly 80 percent of all apps in app stores are controlled by these two market giants according to Distimo. Figures for Q1 2011 from Gartner show that the market share in the smartphone market for iOS and Android combined is 53 percent and rising.

But the duopoly may be challenged by the mobile web and cross-platform tools. HTML5 empowers all other platforms to offer apps through the browser. VisionMobile’s recent Developer Economics report shows that the mobile web (of which HTML5 is a subset) is already the third most popular platform in terms of developer mindshare after Android and iOS.

At the same time, HTML5 is overhyped and the belief that HTML5 will replace almost all native apps is in need of a reality check. Native apps will still offer richer functionality, better performance, and higher security compared to HTML5-based apps. A study by quirksmode.org has shown that every mobile WebKit implementation is slightly different, which could cause a problem for HTML5-based apps. In a recent whitepaper, Netbiscuits measured smartphone support for 18 features in HTML5 and showed that leading smartphones only offer partial (or no) support for a significant number of these features. Implementation is also fragmented. What works on iPhone will probably not work on RIM or Samsung handsets and vice versa. Or to quote Forrester’s take on the HTML5 vs. native debate: “The â€˜Apps vs. Internet’ Debate Will Continue…to be irrelevant.”, “it’s not a question of â€˜either/or’ when it comes to a choice between apps vs. the mobile Web, but both.”

The Landscape Of Cross-Platform Development Tools

The new types of cross-platform tools are more interesting than plain HTML5 because they can deliver higher performance and functionality than browser based HTML5. These tools produce apps as output and fall roughly into two categories:

1) Web apps/hybrid apps. These apps exploit the web engine (“web browser”) and are typically written in HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

2) Native apps. These apps are compiled into machine code and often written in C++ or similar languages.

Cross-platform tools are a nascent market with a flurry of startup activity over the last few years. The following diagram illustrates different trade-offs between complexity and performance in the cross-platform tools market.

Traditional websites: In the lower left corner is the traditional website, limited in performance but providing access to all platforms with no added complexity. Plain HTML5 could be included here once all browsers support the standard.

Web apps/hybrid apps: Adjacent in the diagram are HTML5 web apps that can be downloaded to the browser’s cache and run offline. They will offer better performance and only slightly higher complexity. One step up in the diagram is a market segment of cross-platform tools running simulated native. These tools deliver better performance but the complexity is also higher if the tool has to support multiple platforms. Here we find tools that produce web apps built on HTML5/CCS3 and JavaScript, with some added native elements, typically inside a native wrapper. These cross-platform tools often add native extensions that provide access to some low level native functionality. An example of a player in this market segment is PhoneGap, which is often used in tandem with the Sencha Touch framework. Other tools that run on top of PhoneGap are WorkLight and appMobi.

A closely related market segment is hybrid tools, where the HTML5/JavaScript input is translated into actual native source code. An example of a hybrid tool vendor is Appcelerator‘sTitanium.

Other types of solutions which fall under the main heading of web/hybrid apps are based on Java, Lua, ActionScript or less common languages. The diagram shows how the heavily-fragmented Java ME offers inferior performance in spite of high complexity. The cross-platform tools Corona SDK and DragonRAD are based on Lua. Rhodes is based on HTML/Ruby while OpenPlug uses ActionScript (Flash) as source language. Kony uses drag-n-drop for building enterprise web apps. There is no reliable information about the performance/complexity trade-off for most of these solutions, so their exact position in the diagram above should be viewed as illustrative. In general, tools in which the resulting code is compiled or recompiled to native ARM machine code will have a higher performance.

Native apps: The second main category is native apps. In cross-platform tools for native apps, developers often work with a codebase in C/C++ or C# which is then semi-automatically ported to the target platform and device. Performance is significantly higher with native code, but so is the complexity. Players in this sector include Airplay, Qt and MoSync. The Airplay SDK (now Marmalade) originates in 3D gaming but can also be used as a general C++ cross-platform tool. Qt is a cross-platform UI framework that also can be used for native C++ porting. Qt primarily supports Nokia’s legacy platforms. MoSync is a cross-platform tool for general purpose C++ development, integrated with the Eclipse IDE and also available under an open source (GPL) license.

Cross-Platform Beyond Java – Native Extensions

The traditional approach to cross-platform development has been a lowest common denominator one – much like that taken by Java, Flash Lite and mobile HTML. This approach sacrifices performance, UI pizzazz and access to specific device features.

A workaround is to add native extensions. These can provide additional SDK/NDK libraries for the IDE and also give access to low level hardware functionality. Access to low-level hardware functionality can be managed by a device database that controls which conditional code will be executed on a given device.

Several of the cross-platform vendors have built such device databases with various levels of detail. A device database contains information on screen size, input modality and exact OS version, extending to detailed hardware configurations and known bugs with workarounds.

Using native extensions, it is possible to overcome the inherent limitations that plagued Java. Instead of “write once, run everywhere”, developers can spend 90 percent of their time developing a common codebase and 10 percent adding native tweaks and extensions for each platform and device. For software purists, the 90/10 solution might not seem very elegant, but it is a way forward that can handle the incredible complexity with thousands of devices running more than five OS platforms. In this way, app developers can manage one codebase and port it to target devices without losing functionality. In principle, using a (C++) cross-platform engine with extensions should be able to offer similar functionality with minimal performance penalty as compared to direct development for the target device. There will be significant economies of scale when the common codebase is tweaked for 100s of devices.

The Disruptive Potential Of Cross-Platform

There are few signs that platform fragmentation will disappear. It’s not just Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, which are backed by corporate giants with deep pockets, but also smaller players like QNX (RIM), WebOS (HP), MeeGo (Intel, China Mobile) and Bada (Samsung). Add to that legacy platforms, which will be around for at least a few years: Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Symbian, BREW, Java ME and Flash. If we also include the main desktop platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu), gaming consoles, set-top boxes, cars, and other gadgets, the number of platforms becomes unmanageable.

App developers whose clients need to reach the entire market, face the formidable task of supporting all platforms and devices. If they can use a cross-platform engine the productivity gains will be dramatic compared to paying for separate in-house dev teams for each platform.

Early adopters of cross-platform will most likely be large consumer businesses who need to target the mass market such as media companies, games houses, entertainment companies, banks, and any brand developing B2C apps. Similarly, government agencies are often required to provide non-discriminatory access to their services and cross-platform tools will enable them to do just that. Another group of early adopters of cross-platform tools is CIOs of larger corporations. They face increasing demand from senior staff who want to use their favorite smartphone for secure access of internal company data. Once these early adopters have driven down the prices and sorted out stability issues we should expect to see a fast uptake of cross-platform tools in the mainstream app development market.

Assuming more developers move to cross-platform tools, the power distribution in the mobile sector will be challenged. The difference in the number of available apps between dominant and up-n-coming platforms will be reduced. This will allow smaller platforms to compete on a level playing field.

Web apps and HTML5 should make the largest dent in the market power of traditional platforms. But the final nail in the coffin will come when C++ cross-platform engines can offer almost the same performance and functionality as coding directly on the target platform. This is possible if the cross-platform engines can fully integrate native platform and device extensions. In that case, developers of native apps might reconsider Android, iOS and WP7 and choose to code to a cross-platform IDE, not to the platform. In this scenario, the cross-platform IDEs would become players of equal or even greater importance than the native platforms. At the very least, today’s OS platform wars will move to a totally different level.

Jonas Lind

[Jonas Lind has been working in the TMT sector since the late 1990s. Among other things, he has worked as an industry analyst for TeliaSonera HQ, with trend forecasting and scenarios in a project commissioned by Ericsson Research, as a strategy consultant during the dot com bubble and with femtocell concept development. He runs the blog Mobileforsight and is currently a strategy analyst at the seed stage VC fund STING Capital.]

The mobile services landscape: Can OEMs compete with platform vendors?

[Growing competition and price pressures push handset makers to seek new ways to differentiate. This increasingly means services. VisionMobile Research Partner Michael Vakulenko compares service offerings of leading handset makers, explaining why OEMs will struggle to create meaningful differentiation through services.]

Remember the Motorola RAZR or the Nokia N95? Long gone are the days when handset hardware was fertile ground for innovation and differentiation. Convergence of device form-factors and equal access to advanced chipset technology pushes the handset market to the brink of deep commoditization.

Focus on smartphones can only provide short-term life support for deteriorating margins. Android opened the floodgates to low-cost assemblers to compete in the smartphone market. Aggressive new-comers, like ZTE, Huawei, Acer and Dell, along with a growing list of previously unknown handset manufacturers, push incumbents deeper and deeper into the commoditisation corner. Differentiation based on services increasingly looks like an attractive solution for many handset OEMs.

Services, services, services
Let’s look at how service offerings of leading handset OEMs stack up against each other. Nokia, Samsung, Apple, RIM, HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson (in no particular order) all have service ambitions and will be the subjects of the comparison.

State-of-the-art service offerings go far beyond much-hyped application stores. We â€˜ll dig into the following service categories:

– Content retailing services: App stores, music, premium video and billing.
– Cloud services: Cloud-based contact book, cloud synchronization/backup, and device management (i.e. location tracking and remote lock).
– Communication services: Email services (e.g. gmail.com, me.com or nokia.com), instant messaging and video conferencing services
– Location-based services: Maps and navigation
– Advertising: Ownership of an ad network, display ads, multimedia ads and location-based ads.

Since many of the OEMs use Google Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms, we ‘ll also compare OEM service offerings with the â€˜native’ services of the platforms.

The table below compares service offerings of different OEMs, as well as smartphone platforms across the above service categories.

The Leader: Apple
Apple, as usual, is in a league of its own. Apple has an extensive set of services anchored in the well-oiled iTunes content machine and MobileMe cloud services. One glaring omission is location-based services. For now, Apple has to rely on an uncomfortable partnership with Google Maps. There are persistent rumors that Apple develops its own location and mapping services (here and here). We can expect that sooner or later Apple will find its way out of its dependency on Google Maps, launching its own location-based services.

Challengers: Nokia, RIM
The next group of companies are the challengers – Nokia and RIM. Both use integrated models similar to Apple’s, combining proprietary software platforms with proprietary hardware (for now I will ignore the big unknowns of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft).

Nokia has a comprehensive service portfolio, even compared to Apple. It ranges from the quintessential app store and music service all the way to location-based services and its own ad network. However, Nokia’s execution was weak and the future of Nokia’s services is up in the air following announced the partnership with Microsoft.

In contrast, RIM has a sketchy service portfolio, focused on its best-in-class messaging services. These include push-email, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), in addition to the mandatory app store. It looks like RIM continues to focus on hardware and its new QNX operating system. For now, service-based innovation outside messaging takes a back seat for the BlackBerry platform.

Wannabes: Samsung, HTC, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola
Finally, Samsung, HTC, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola are OEMs building smartphones based on the Android and, in some cases, Windows Phone software platforms (Samsung also owns the bada software platform).

While Motorola is strong in cloud services with its MOTOBLUR service, Samsung leads the way in content. The Samsung offer includes music downloads and movie services, bundled with the popular line of Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Due to the licensing terms of content owners, content services have a limited geographical footprint, being available only in North America and Europe.

Overall, the services offering is very mixed for these vendors with piecemeal solutions mostly focused on content and cloud sync services.

Platforms: Android and Windows Phone
Unsurprisingly, Android and Windows Phone offer a comprehensive set of â€˜native’ services across all service categories. Google Android is weak in content services compared to Apple and even Windows Phone, but compensates with leading-edge location-based services and a comprehensive ad offering. Windows Phone â€˜native’ services leverage Microsoft’s Bing, Live, Zune and Xbox assets having millions of active users.

These â€˜native’ services form the basis for platform differentiation and user value proposition for both platforms.

OEMs will struggle to make impact with services
Out of these handset OEMs, only Apple and Nokia come close to the breadth and scale of service offerings provided by platform vendors. It’s really difficult to see how Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson and Motorola can create highly differentiating services on the Android or Windows Phone platforms. For them, services will not become a solution for the upcoming wave of commoditization.

Dependency on 3rd party software platforms, lack of scale for making meaningful content deals, conflict of interests with operators and incompatible company DNA will make it extremely difficult for handset OEMs to make an impact with services.

In the words of Nokia’s CEO “Devices are not enough anymore”. No, this quote was not one of Stephen Elop’s, taken from the recent “burning platform” memo – it comes from a speech made back in 2007, by then Nokia CEO,Olli –Pekka Kallasvuo. Nokia realized early that services will play a critical role in handset value proposition. The Finnish OEM has tried hard to reinvent itself and become a hardware+services company.

The rest is history. Nokia found it nearly impossible to reconcile the DNA of a hardware company, which “lives” by device release cycles, with the DNA of a service company that “lives” by developing long term relationships with users, developers and partner ecosystems. If Nokia failed to do so with their vast resources and enviable volume leadership, what are the chances that Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson or Motorola will manage it?

– Michael

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[Michael Vakulenko is a Research Partner at VisionMobile. He has been working in the mobile industry for over 16 years, starting his career in wireless in Qualcomm. Michael has a broad experience across many aspects of the mobile industry, including smartphone ecosystems, mobile services, handset software, wireless chipsets and network infrastructure. He can be reached at michael [/at/] visionmobile.com]

Demolition Derby in Devices: The roller-coaster ride is on

[The economic realities will lead to a roller-coaster ride that will shake up the mobile industry. Guest blogger Richard Kramer talks about the impending price war, the implications for industry growth, and how this will alter the landscape of device vendors in the next decade]

With all the discussion of technology trends on the blogosphere, there are some harsh economic realities creeping up on the handset space. The collective efforts of vendors to deliver great products will lead to an all-out smash-up for market share, bringing steep declines in pricing.

In November 2009 I wrote a note about what Arete saw as the impending dynamics of the mobile device market. I called it Demolition Derby. This followed on from a piece called Clash of the Titans, about how the PC and Handset worlds were colliding, brought together by common software platforms and adopting common chipset architectures. As handsets morphed into connected devices, it opened the door for computing industry players, now flooding in.

New categories of non-phone devices
A USB modem/datacard market of 70m units in 2009 should counted as an extra third of the smartphone market, as it connected a range of computing devices. By the end of 2010, I believe there will be many new categories of non-phone mobile devices to track (datacards, embedded PCs, tablets, etc.), and they may be equal to high-end smartphone market in units in 2011. Having looked at the roadmaps of nearly every established and wannabe vendor in the mobile device space, I cannot recall a period in the past 15 years of covering the device market with so many credible vendors, most with their best product portfolios ever, tossing their hats in the ring. I see three things happening because of this:

1. First, a brutal price war is coming. This will affect nearly every segment of the mobile device market. Anyone who thinks they are insulated from this price war is simply deluded. I have lost count of the number of vendors planning to offer a touch-screen slim mono-bloc Android device for H2 2010. The only thing that will set all these devices apart will be brand, and in the end, price. Chipmakers – the canaries in the handset coal mine – are already talking about slim HSPA modems at $10 price points, and $20 combined application processors and RF. Both Huawei and ZTE now targeting Top Three positions in devices, with deep engagements developing operator brands. They are already #1 and #2 in USB modems. Just look at the pricing trends ZTE and Huawei brought to the infrastructure market; this will come to mobile devices.

2. Second, growth will rebound with a vengeance. I expect 15% volume growth in 2010, well ahead of the cautious consensus of 8%. I first noted this failure of vision in forecasting in a 2005 note entitled “A Billion Handsets in 2007” when the consensus was looking for 6% growth whereas we got 20%+ growth for three years, thanks to the onset of $25 BoM devices. Consumers will not care about software platform debates or feature creep packing devices with GHz processors in 2010. Ask your friends who don’t read mobile blogs and aren’t hung up about AppStores or tear-downs: they will simply respond to an impossibly wide choice of impossibly great devices, offered to them at impossibly cheap prices.

3. Third, the detente is over. The long-term stability that alllowed the top five vendors to command 80% market share for most of this decade is breaking down. This is not simply a question of “Motorola fades, Samsung steps in” or “LG replaces SonyEricsson in the featurephone space”. Within a year, there could be dangerously steep market share declines among the former market leaders (i.e. Nokia) to accompany their decline in value share. Operators are grasping control of the handset value chain; many intend to follow the lead of Vodafone 360 to develop their own range of mid-tier and low-end devices. Whether or not this delivers better user experiences, operators are determined to target their subsidy spend to their favourite ODM partners. In developed markets, long-established vendors are getting eclipsed: in 2010, RIM or Apple could pass traditional vendors like SonyEricsson or Motorola in units. RIM and Apple already handily out-paced older rivals in sales value, and with $41bn of estimated sales in 2010, are on par with Nokia.

Hyper competition
So where does this lead us? Even with far greater volumes than anyone dares to imagine, there is no way to satisfy everyone’s hopes of share gains, or profits. With Apple driving to $25bn in 2010 sales and Mediatek-based customers seeking share in emerging markets, the mobile device market is entering a phase of hyper-competition. It is all too easy for industry pundits to forget that Motorola and Sony Ericsson collectively lost over $5bn in the past 2.5 years. More such losses are to come.

Never before have we seen so many vendors acting individually rationally, but collectively insane. Albert Einstein once famously said that “the defintiion of insanity was doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result”.

The men in the white coats will have a field day with the mobile device market in 2010.

– Richard

[After four years as the #1 rated technology analyst in Europe, Richard Kramer left Goldman Sachs in 2000 to form an independent global technology research group. Arete has 10 years experience dissecting the financials and industry trends in semis, software, devices and telecom operators, out of offices in London, Boston, New York and Hong Kong. Richard can be reached at richard [dot] kramer [at] arete.net]