2009 International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems

Mobile Phone Operating System Choice in Mobile Phone Game from Market
Prospect

Chen Xin
Research Center for International Trade and Economic
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Guangzhou, China
e-mail: sincere_cx@126.com

Abstract—Some games are running directly on mobile phone
OS and they do not require VM. Thus, mobile phone OS is also
the running environment of mobile phone game. This paper
centres on the main mobile phone operating systems and their
features and the prospects of various mobile phone operating
systems.
Keywords-VM, OS feature, mobile phone, mobile phone
game, operating system, running environment
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, The Serious Games Initiative has been
founded, which is focused on uses for games in exploring
management and leadership challenges facing the public
sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive
links between the electronic game industry and projects
involving the use of games in education, training, health, and
public policy.
On the other hand, mobile commerce is fast becoming a
reality. The technology is being developed at an
unprecedented rate, with vast amounts of money being
invested in hope of large commercial gain at the end of it.
(Quoted from M.A.G Project Synopsis)
The original intention of Serious Games Initiative is to
organize and accelerate the adoption of computer games for
a variety of challenges facing the world today. However,
mobile phone game is growing up with the development of
mobile commerce. By adopting methodologies, tools and
techniques based on mobile phone to serious games could be
infused with new, different and possibly alien ways of
‘thinking and do things’, thereby acting as positive and
active change catalyst for further creativity and innovation.
Compiled languages in general offer better control over
the UI, direct access to the phone’s hardware, and greater
speed for the same processing power when compared to an
interpreted language (Nokia, January 2003). Compiled
Language Game is run on OS directly and enables rich, high-
performance games (Guo, 2003). Thus, it is said that mobile
phone OS is the platform for Compiled Language Game.
The thinking of serious games is ‘utilize game designs,
technologies, and development skills in new series of policy
education, exploration, management and so on’ (The Serious
Games Initiative), however, the game or software also
requires running platform. Thus, it is necessary to analyse,
evaluate, compare and contrast various mobile phone
operating systems.
II. CURRENT MOBILE PHONE OPERATING SYSTEM
OVERVIEW
Currently, the main mobile phone operating systems are:
Microsoft SmartPhone, Symbian OS, Palm OS and
Embedded Linux (Fu, 2003).
A. Microsoft SmartPhone
In mobile phone OS industry, ‘Windows Mobile’ is
Microsoft’s new brand. There are two systems under this
brand: Pocket PC and SmartPhone. The former is focused on
PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) market, which mainly
competitor is Palm. The later is focused on mobile phone
market, which mainly competitor is Symbian. Currently,
Motorola, ARM, ST, NeoMagic, Texas Instruments, Intel,
Samsung and Hynix begin to develop processor for
SmartPhone and Poct PC; and over 30 manufacturers
produce mobile devices based on SmartPhone and Pocket PC
(Fu, 2003).
B. Symbian OS
The previous of Symbian is EPOC (Electronic Piece of
Cheese). Symbian is not only an OS, but also an alliance,
which was founded in 1987 by Motorola, Siemens, Nokia,
and other large companies (Motorola exited on August 2003).
Nowadys, Symbian has become an independent, for-profit
company whose mission is to establish Symbian OS as the
world standard for mobile digital data systems, primarily for
use in cellular telecoms.
C. Palm OS
Palm was the leader in PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
with the market share achieving 90% at one time
(Computing Market Condition, 10th March 2004). Nowadays,
the technology relationship between PDA and mobile phone
becomes closer and closer. For instance, a PDA has phone
call function and a mobile phone has PDA interface. Thus,
Palm began infiltrating mobile phone industry. Palm has
divided into two companies aiming at hardware and software.
Hereinto, Palm Source is to establish Palm OS. At the same
time, Palm Source collaborates with Handspring to produce
Palm mobile phone.

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DOI 10.1109/IIS.2009.98
D. Embedded Linux
The term of ‘Linux’ is very hot in these years. Linux is
not only applied in console but also in mobile phone. This
Linux version is called Embedded Linux. According to Mr.
Yaghmour (2003) Embedded Linux involves three
designations: a kernel, a system, and a distribution. A kernel
has been specifically tailored for a special hardware
configuration or support for a certain type of application; a
system simply designates an embedded system based on the
Linux kernel and does not imply the use of any specific
library or user tools with this kernel; a distribution may
include: a development framework for embedded Linux
systems, various software applications tailored for usage in
an embedded system, or both. Nowadays, Motorola and
Samsung have announced to develop mobile phone based on
Embedded Linux (Computing Market Condition, 10th March
2004).
III. COMMENT AND REVIEW
A. Microsoft SmartPhone
Firstly, SmartPhone is based on open architecture.
SmartPhone is developed from Windows CE, which costs
Microsoft a great deal of human resource, capital and time.
Moreover, a huge quantity the third party support has been
cumulated. Currently, there are thousands of applications and
games based on Windows CE (Zhong Guan Chun Weekly,
6th January 2004). Theoretically, the software, which is
developed from Windows CE, can be run on SmartPhone
smoothly. Microsoft utilizes its open architecture to attract
more and more software developers (Computing Market
Condition, 10th March 2004).
Secondly, SmartPhone is supported by powerful
technology. On one hand, Microsoft possess of most
powerful in software development. Software based on
SmartPhone is compatible with console one (Computing
Market Condition, 10th March 2004). For instance,
applications in SmartPhone are allowed synchronize with
Word, Excel, Outlook and so on. On the other hand, most
processor manufactures have announced to develop chipsets
for SmartPhone (Fu, 2003). Further, SmartPhone is easy to
extend. In theory, the hardware, such as Webcam, CF card,
which are used in Windows CE, also can be installed on
SmartPhone.
B. Symbian OS
Symbian is born for mobile phone (Zhong Guan Chun
Weekly, 6th January 2004). Thus, Symbian OS has different
segments for various level mobile phones. For instance, there
are three types of Symbian OS: Pearl, Quartz and Crystal.
The first one is for average handset (low level), the second
one is for smart phone (middle level), and the last one is for
hand held PC (high level). In addition, Symbian OS is
‘simple’. According to CBI Technology Testing and
Research Institute (Zhong Guan Chun Weekly, 6th January
2004), Symbian does not require high performance hardware.
For instance, Symbian can be run well on low speed CPU
and less 30 Kb memories.
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However, Symbian is not based on open architecture.
Thus, it is difficult for developers develop software based on
Symbian (Zhong Guan Chun Weekly, 6th January 2004).
Compared with SamrtPhone, fewer the third parties support
Symbian (Computing Market Condition, 10th March 2004).
Fortunately, Symbian has realized this issue and embraces
J2ME. Thus, more and more companies can develop Java
applications on this OS.
C. Palm OS
Palm is the leader in PDA market (Computing Market
Condition, 10th March 2004). PDA users can change to use
Palm OS mobile phone easily, since they are familiar with
Palm’s interface. This is one of Palm’s selling points. In
addition, according to the sense of Palm Source: ‘Less is
More’, the size of Palm OS is small and the system uses less
resource. Thus, Palm does not require high performance
hardware.
However, all programs in Palm are based on SDI (Single
Document Interface) not MDI (Multiple Document
Interface). In other words, only one program can be run at
one time. This technique is outdated in multimedia period
(Computing Market Condition, 10th March 2004). Moreover,
Palm is also not based on open architecture. Though, this
close architecture gives much greater reliability in the long
run, however, it is difficult to learn writing programme on
Palm (Ferguson, 2002). At the same time, the secret weapon
at the heart of Microsoft’s challenge to the Palm OS market
is its close integration with standard Windows applications
(Ferguson, 2002). In order to thrive as mobile phone OS,
then, one of the first challenges that Palm will undoubtedly
try to overcome in the immediate future is its ability to
interoperate with a wide variety of third-party software.
According to Ferguson (2002), one example of this is Palm’s
embracing of the J2ME platform.
D. Embedded Linux
Embedded Linux inherits the advantages of Linux.
Firstly, it is reliability (Computing Market Condition, 10th
March 2004). According to Mr. Pfaffenberger (1999), part of
the credit goes to the excellence of the underlying Unix
design philosophy, and the rest goes to the Linux
development community’s sedulous efforts to find and
eliminate bugs. Secondly, Linux is distributed under the
terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The fact
that the source code is available for modification is itself an
attraction. Because programmers can modify the underlying
code, companies can add features to the operating system
that are needed for specific purposes. Moreover, Linux is
free from licensing hassles. Commercial software licenses
expose organizations to unwanted liabilities; however, Linux
carries no such burden (Pfaffenberger, 1999).
E. Market Prospect
The competition among various mobile phone operating
systems is surrounding smart phone, which is a cell phone
that can run computer-styled programmes. Software supplied
by Symbian controlled 41% of the personal organizers and
smart phones shipped world-wide in the second quarter of
2004, compared with 37% in the same quarter a year ago,
according to research firm canalys.com Ltd., of Reading,
England (Pringle, 2004). Microsoft’s share remained steady
at 23%, while the share of PalmSource Inc., of Sunnyvale,
Calif., fell to 23% from 31%. Thus, Symbian occupies the
biggest market share in mobile phone OS market, while
Palm is the second and Windows Mobile (including
SmartPhone and Pocket PC) is the third.
According to CBI Technology Testing and Research
Institute (Zhong Guan Chun Weekly, 6th January 2004),
Symbian has been invested over $700 million, which is the
largest among all mobile phone operating systems. However,
the number is not a large number to Microsoft, who
processes of $46 billion capital. Only the promotion cost of
‘Windows Server 2003’ is over $400 million. Thus, the
strength of Microsoft is immeasurable. According to the
prediction of ACR (Zhong Guan Chun Weekly, 6th January
2004), by 2007, Microsoft’s market share of mobile phone
OS will exceed Symbian.
As to Linux, it is still a new recruit in mobile phone OS.
According to LinuxWorld China 2004 (Xu, 2004), several
Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are planning to adopt
Linux as smart phone’s OS, besides Motorola and Samsung.
However, all participators do not believe Linux could beat
Windows Mobile and Symbian. They consider Linux would
be a new strength to drive the development of mobile phone
OS.
Microsoft, Palm Source, and Symbian are vying to be the
leading supplier of software to control hand-held gizmos
(Pringle, 2004). Although the market for such software is
valued at about $250 million a year and still is in its infancy,
analysts say establishing early momentum is important.
Developers are likely to write programs for whichever
software system has the biggest market share, reinforcing
that system’s popularity (Pringle, 2004).
Thus, from market prospect, SmartPhone and Symbian
are the best choices. For short term, Symbian dominates the
main market. For long term, SmartPhone has more potential
power.
IV. CONCLUSION
Currently, the main mobile phone operating systems are:
Microsoft SmartPhone, Symbian OS, Palm OS and
Embedded Linux (Fu, 2003).
From technology viewpoint, SmartPhone is based on
open architecture and supported by powerful technology.
Symbian OS has various segments for different level mobile
phones and is simple and requires less resource. However,
Symbian is not based on open architecture. Thus, it is
difficult for developers to develop Symbian applications.
Palm OS is based on PDA originally. PDA users can change
to use Palm OS mobile phone easily. Moreover, Palm OS is
also simple and requires less resource. As to Embedded
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Linux, it inherits the advantages of Linux with outstanding
reliability, open source licensing and freedom from licensing
hassles.
From market viewpoint, Symbian, Palm and Microsoft
occupy the top three market share in mobile phone OS with
41%, 31% and 23% (Pringle, 2004). However, Windows
Mobile has more potential power. As to Linux, though it is
still a new recruit, it is also an important force to drive
mobile phone OS development. Developers are likely to
write programs for whichever software system has the
biggest market share, reinforcing that system’s popularity
(Pringle, 2004). Thus, SmartPhone and Symbian are the best
choces. For short term, Symbian still dominate the main
market. However, for long term, SmartPhone has more
competitive power.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is supported by the MOE Project of Key
Research Institute of Humanities & Social Science at
Universities（No.07JJD870220）
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