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Smartphones: Symbian sinks under 50% share, Apple races past Windows Mobile
jkOnTheRun — ... and watched RIM jump past Windows Mobile. Mac OS X handset sales, i.e.: the iPhone, more than doubled year-over-year and perennial market leader Symbian was in danger of dipping below the 50% line. Fast forward to today thanks to Gartner's 3rd quarter numbers and you can see that the trends are continuing. For some that's good, while others were already declining in market share and they keep sinking. Note: while other similar research came to light this week, I'm focusing on Gartner's numbers simply for consistency because I used them a quarter ago. ...

Apple, RIM winners in shrinking smartphone market
Infinite Loop — Like a commercial break that strikes right when the made-for-TV movie is just getting interesting, a new study says that worldwide smartphone growth reached its lowest rate during the third quarter of 2008. Renewed competition has caused manufacturers to play market share musical chairs, though, with Nokia, Apple, Microsoft, and even Palm all experiencing surprising shifts. According to Gartner's report , worldwide smartphone sales reached 36.5 million units in the third quarter 2008, which was an 11.5 percent increase from the same quarter in 2007. Moving forward, Gartner ...

Apple Blows Past Microsoft (AAPL)
Silicon Alley Insider — Perhaps the most impressive stat on Gartner's Q3 smartphone report: Apple's (AAPL) iPhone blew past Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile as the no. 3 smartphone operating system, behind Nokia's (NOK) Symbian and RIM's (RIMM) BlackBerry. Specifically, Apple sold 4.7 million iPhones to end users in Q3, up 328% year-over-year, while Microsoft's partners sold 4.1 million Windows Mobile phones to end users, down 3% year-over-year. (Symbian's partners sold 18.2 million, down 12%; RIM sold 5.8 million, up 82%.) Why is this so impressive? Because mobile phone companies -- including Microsoft -- have insisted for years ...

The Macalope Weekly: Netbooks, Zune phones, and other maladies
Macworld — ... . Well, that’s it then. Let’s turn the lights out on the iPhone and… Wait, what? Sales of all netbooks overtook just the iPhone? What kind of statistic is that? Even worse, when you dig a little deeper, you see that Gartner provided the iPhone sales number of 4.7 million . But Apple reported sales of 7 million. Well, Gartner says Apple stuffed the channel with about 2 million units. Maybe they did, but did ...

The Macalope Weekly: Netbooks, Zune phones, and other maladies
MacUser — ... . Well, that’s it then. Let’s turn the lights out on the iPhone and… Wait, what? Sales of all netbooks overtook just the iPhone? What kind of statistic is that? Even worse, when you dig a little deeper, you see that Gartner provided the iPhone sales number of 4.7 million . But Apple reported sales of 7 million. Well, Gartner says Apple stuffed the channel with about 2 million units. Maybe they did, but did ...

iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile… Oh My!
louisgray.com — ... we get what we want, when we want it, right in our hand – now! The numbers don’t lie. Apple has successfully captured 23 percent of the market according to a ChangeWave report in December, with Palm and Motorola suffering losses of almost half of their respective market share: Palm suffered a drop from 18 to 9 percent, while Motorola shed 3 percent to crash land at 4 percent. Windows Mobile slid precipitously, allowing Apple to overtake it in worldwide sales, and oddly enough, there were no numbers released for ...

Why 81% of You Aren’t Impressed by Windows Mobile 6.5
jkOnTheRun — Yikes! The vast majority of our recent poll participants fell into either the “Not Impressed” or “OK, but not enough progress” categories. Only 19% of you figuratively had your socks knocked off by the incremental upgrade. I’m using the word incremental for a reason here, because it underlies a large part of the challenge that Microsoft is facing. I also believe it has much to do with how folks voted. I think folks are disappointed by what amounts to minimal improvements relative to the time between releases. Sadly, none of us are going to see new devices ...

Microsoft Should Buy Research In Motion
Silicon Alley Insider — ... the next step? Microsoft should buy Research In Motion (RIMM), the company that makes BlackBerry smartphones. RIM shares fell another 4% today, and have lost about a third of their value this month. With RIM's market cap down to around $21 billion, Microsoft might be able to get the deal done for $35 billion. Why buy RIM? The smartphone market (and ultra-mobile computing in general) is growing. RIM has a higher market share than Microsoft, and it's growing. Microsoft's is shrinking. RIM has a huge enterprise business with a ...