I happened across this 2008 piece in which a Symbian exec criticizes Linux as a potential mobile OS. Thought you all might find it amusing.
…To which I reply: “Symbian Who?”
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This guy under estimated the distance that people will go, to gain their freedom. He also has personal vested interests that are better served if all cell phones stay proprietary. The actual platform is almost irrelevant. Putting aside architectural issues (x86 vs ARM), Windows 95 would run quite nicely on today’s cell phones with respect to system resourcing. So which version of Linux is this guy referring to when he says that Linux is not a good platform for phones? At some time in the future, I imagine that the most bloated desktop OS of today will easily run well on the future latest phones. I remember paying $35 in 1975 for an oversized pocket calculator with a red LED seven-segment display of ten digits only. All it did was add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I figured then that electronics couldn’t get much smaller.
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Well you have to remember that those opinions are 13 years old. At the time his argument was much more valid than today.
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There are some valid points made but, as @Gavaudan says, a lot can change in technology and in the tech industry in 13 years.
Google wasn’t attempting to splinter the market. Google was (successfully) attempting to dominate the market.
Predicting the future of tech is hard and you usually end up looking like a goose.
This. Privacy is 100 times more under threat than it was in 2008.
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