Android Passes Symbian As Most-Shipped Mobile Platform 256
nk497 writes "Symbian is no longer the most-shipped mobile platform, with Android finally knocking Nokia's OS out of the number one position. Manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices in Q4 of last year, compared to 31 million Symbian devices, according to Canalys. That gives Google a 33% share of the global mobile market, over 31% for Nokia's Symbian. 'It's gone from nowhere to number one in the space of two years, which is pretty impressive,' Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham said, predicting Android would double its growth rate this year."
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Android has 350k+ activations a day. On smartphones iOS will be in second place, right were apple wants it. They want to be the up market trendy choice, they are all about image and high price. They want to be BMW, which means you will not see Toyota levels of sales.
Re:Can we speculate about what Ballmer is thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
> It would be IE vs Netscape all over again
Except this time, Netscape is metaphorically Microsoft's product, and IE smells like fresh, hot gingerbread. Mmmmm!
Take away Google, and the streets will riot, Take away Bing, and... er... um... someone might eventually notice. Maybe.
Hotmail? Is that actually used for anything besides MSDN SSO credentials anymore?
IE? (rolling on the floor, gasping for breath amidst near-lethal amounts of laughter). People with *Windows Mobile* didn't even use Internet Explorer before Android came out. We used Opera, and paid for it, because Pocket IE sucked like a whore with braces. I'm sure Microsoft did a much better job with IE on WP7... but then again, a chimp with a Commodore 64 and a pirated copy of GEOS could probably improve upon PIE in its WM6.x incarnation.
MS Office Suite? Meh. Apps to view and edit word/excel docs are free and abundant. Outlook still can't do adhoc aliases properly, and Android can be induced to lie about its authentication capabilities so you won't have to indulge your company's IT department's wet dreams by entering a 16-digit passcode before it allows you to answer an incoming phone call.