In January this year, Google threw down a gauntlet to the mobile phone industry. At an event in California, the search engine giant unveiled its latest product, the Nexus One.
 

The Nexus One is a smartphone – or in Google’s parlance, a ‘super phone’ – manufactured by Taiwan’s HTC, and runs Google’s Android operating system. Available for now – at least – mainly on US mobile network T-Mobile, early reviews suggest that the Nexus One is good, but not spectacular. Then again, the Nexus One is only Google’s first effort at making an actual handset, rather than software. And Google has a habit of transforming the industries it takes on.

In fact, Google had already been making waves in the mobile phone industry, even before the Nexus One. The An-droid operating system for smart phones, developed by Google but made available to other manufacturers on an ‘open source’ model, has already attracted strong support from handset makers and mobile network operators.
The roll call for Android includes Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and Motorola, as well as now, Google itself.
 

Android on a growth curve

Android’s growth poses an interesting question for businesses that want to standardise on a smartphone platform, and indeed for executives who want the best in mobile technology.
 

Android’s growth looks set to surpass even that of Apple’s iPhone, with Gartner, a technology market research com-pany, predicting that Android will be the second most popular platform for mobile phones in the Gulf region within the next two years.
 

Android is putting increasing pressure on Nokia and its S60 operating system. S60 is based on Symbian – like An-droid, now open source – but it is Nokia handset sales that are behind Symbian’s popularity in the Middle East.
 

Symbian accounted for a staggering 92.1% of smartphone handsets sold in the Middle East and Africa regions, again according to Gartner. Its closest rival, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, managed to reach a market share of just 5%, and the iPhone, just 1.6%.
 

The huge popularity of Nokia’s lower cost phones in Africa slightly flatters Symbian’s market share, Gartner admits, with rivals gaining higher market shares than in the Middle East and Africa region as a whole.
 

But, as Gartner’s research director for mobile devices, Carolina Milanesi, points out, Nokia’s business-focused E Se-ries phones are selling well in the Middle East, especially the E90, E71, and recently launched E72 smartphones. The lower-cost E63 is also a strong seller.
 

Microsoft, whose Windows Mobile platform is Nokia’s closest regional rival, does enjoy strong sales for its ruggedised and intrinsically safe phones. These are especially popular in the oil and gas industries. And Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices are also growing in popularity, seeing growth especially since the company launched its first Arabic-language handset, with Etisalat, in 2007.
 

Strong local language support is also the reason Nokia has proved a popular choice for smart phones in the Middle East (see sidebar: Competitions boost Arabic development).
 

It is also why alternatives such as the iPhone have not gained ground as quickly as they have in markets such as North America and Western Europe.
 

“Devices that are popular in the Middle East tend to be stylish, but one reason Nokia’s devices tend to resonate well in the region is because they feature a keyboard,” says Leif-Olof Wallin, a vice president for research, also at Gartner. “Touch screens remain a little awkward to use in Arabic.” Nokia also gains by having a range of smart phones at dif-ferent price points, whereas companies such as Apple have a much more limited range.
 

Choices for business

A wide range of handsets, from different brands and at different prices, is also a feature of the Android operating system. In addition, the open-source nature of Android allows handset makers and mobile networks to customise the interface.
 

In this way, HTC has designed its Android phones so they are functionally very similar to its Window Mobile de-vices. Motorola, on the other hand, has designed phones such as the Dext, which focus on mobile social networking applications.
 

It should also help businesses that want to run more specialist applications across a range of Android phones, al-though so far the range of software available from Android’s Market falls a long way short of the choice offered by Apple’s Application Store for the iPhone.
 

This means that businesses wanting to pick the right smart phone might need to adopt two separate strategies: pick the best device now for their current applications, whilst watching how Android, and other new operating systems such as Palm’s WebOS, develop.
 

For high levels of security and data protection, this tends to point towards the BlackBerry; for good Arabic support, Nokia; and for business applications and ruggedised devices, Windows Mobile. Then again, if ease of use is the priority, the iPhone still has the edge.
 

“From an enterprise perspective, if you are developing applications, now is the right time to move to Android,” says Gartner’s Leif-Olof Wallin. “As a business user, it might still be too early.”

Security and device management

For business smart phones, security and device management are as important as ease of use and style. Individuals buying smart phones might not worry too much about features such as whole device encryption, but it comes to the fore when a device carries confidential business or personal data.
 

Device management, including who has access to certain applications, and the ability to lock or wipe a lost device, is also crucial.
 

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform is seen as the industry standard here, with more security certifications than any other device, and advanced device and applications management via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. However, Microsoft has closed the gap, with the latest release of its System Center Mobile Device Manager.
 

At the very least, a business smart phone should be compatible with the OMA-DM (Open Mobile Alliance-Device Management) standard, although devices such as the iPhone do also support remote wiping of data, via Apple’s iTunes software.