• GigaOm, Friday, February 15, 2008 11:45 AM

For years, the Mobile World Congress has issued the promise that the mobile Web will one day be more like the traditional Internet that we access from our PCs. But GigaOm notes there's too much variation in operating systems and end devices, which makes it hard for developers to build applications for a mobile phone. In other words, a shakeout needs to occur, a leader needs to emerge.

But there's a greater problem, here: according to Wikipedia, U.S. smartphone (loosely described as a phone with PC-like functionality) penetration is only expected to hit 10 percent this year. Most of these handsets have different interfaces: touch-screen, scroll wheel, stylus or keyboard. This requires different operating systems. There are six vying for control of that market: (in order of market share) Symbian OS, Linux, Windows Mobile, RIM BlackBerry, Palm OS, and Apple's OS X.

What we have here is a market maturity problem. For starters, smartphone penetration has a long way to grow. Once it reaches 30 or so percent, leaders will emerge in the handset and OS markets. Then software developers can create more and better programs that scale, and advertisers will have a sizable audience and quality programs to buy space on. But we're talking years, not months.

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