It’s official. Cell phone companies have now displaced the pharmaceutical industry with the most annoying commercials on prime time television. If you stopped for a minute, you probably could name all the cell phone companies and their ads.

The major phone companies (AT&T and Verizon) saw it coming and predicted land line revenue would dip below cellular revenue. Think about all the ways your cellular bill can blow up with roaming, text messages, game downloads, data plans and of course new equipment costs. The evolution of cell phone to Smartphone has transformed the industry. The Smartphone is a small, scaled down computer that also makes phone calls.  Here is a breakdown of the heavyweights.

Blackberry

The Blackberry is the ol’ champ. More businesses are using this Smartphone than any other, and it has 42 percent of the market. Blackberries (manufactured by RIM) have been around long enough so IT staff have a standardized platform to work with (like Microsoft Windows). But the tide has changed and RIM is having a hard time keeping up with the iPhone.

iPhone

Ah yes, the envy of the industry. Steve Jobs has turned this industry on its head and did what Apple does best…innovate. We don’t how AT&T pulled off being the exclusive carrier of the iPhone but they did. Unfortunately, AT&T’s slow data bandwidth is causing headaches for iPhone users and AT&T technicians.

Rumor has it Apple will open the iPhone to other carriers. Apple has changed the industry by making the Smartphone the carrot to chase and not the cellular service. The cellular providers are becoming like long-distance service, a commodity.

Even though Apple knows how to design an operating system, it’s the apps (software) that sell the phone. With 25 percent of the market and more than 100,000 apps the iPhone will probably take over as champion—but not without a fight.

Android (Nexus One)

The Android operating system is the up-and-coming Smartphone with over 20,000 apps. Google has become the “we will organize ALL of your information” company. The Nexus One (Android™ version 2.1 on great hardware) is Google’s latest and greatest Smartphone that is unlocked. At the time of this article, T-Mobile is the only carrier who has this phone on their network, but soon all major carriers will support this device.

In addition, Nexus One can only be purchased from Google.

The strength of the Nexus One is that it ties all of Google software together (search engine, Gmail, voice, YouTube, maps, calendar). Google took the cloud computing concept and created a Smartphone to use it.

Palm Pre

Palm was one of the first companies to make a PDA that later included cellular service.  The Palm Pre was released in June 2009. Even though it is a good product (the only to have multi-tasking), it’s having a hard time staying relevant. Whoever has the most apps wins and Palm Pre has approximately a thousand.

Apple and Google have changed the industry by dictating to the carriers what they must do to get to win their business (3G, Wi-Fi, coverage, tech support service). This has caused the tables to turn and there’s no reason to think it will ever go back—we are well past the Dick Tracy phone.

		Dan Aylward is owner and senior telecommunications consultant of Abilita, in Lansing. Abilita is a full-service telecom consulting solutions provider. Aylward has helped businesses reduce technology costs and assists with improving business productivity.