'Microsoft, Linux to dominate smart phones by 2010'

A new analyst report has predicted that smart phone OS leader Symbian will soon be toppled by two relative upstarts of the mobile world.

According to the Diffusion Group, by the end of the decade both Windows and Linux will have greater market share than Symbian.

In 2010, the analyst house said, Symbian will see its market share halved to around 22 per cent, while Windows will climb to more than 28 per cent and Linux to more than 26 per cent.

The Diffusion Group said the change will come about as 3G networks enable more advanced applications made possible by the likes of Microsoft and Linux.

Currently, Symbian shipments dwarf those of rival Microsoft. At this week's 3GSM conference, Symbian announced its 2005 shipments had reached 33 million for the year. Microsoft said it had shipped five million devices in the same period.

In a recent interview with silicon.com, Jørgen Behrens, VP of product management and strategy at the mobile OS company said he considered Microsoft and Linux less of a commercial threat than the own-brand proprietary OSes used by handsets vendors on their mid-range phones.

He said: "Microsoft are years behind us. We have the battle-hardened robustness that you get on a system... on 200 networks in 70 countries, rather than just odd operators in odd countries."