For several years, the battle between Apple and Microsoft existed primarily on desktop computers. The feud shifted to laptops in the mid-2000s, but Apple's first generation iPhone was a game-changer in 2007. Sparking a revolution in the tech industry, the rise of smartphones once again changed the war between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs' respective enterprises. Today, Apple and Microsoft duke it out on the mobile battlegrounds. As mobile usage increases, many businesses must adjust their procedures and take advantage of text messaging, which is still the dominant application on today's mobile phones.
Unlike its experience with desktop software, Microsoft was slightly late to the party when it came to designing mobile operating systems. In fact, Apple's true competitor on the mobile front has been Google. The search giant's Android mobile operating system and Apple's iOS platform currently hold the top two market shares, but analysts predict that Microsoft is quickly gaining ground.
Last month, research firm IDC reported that Microsoft's Windows Phone will reach a 19.6 percent share of the smartphone market by 2016. According to IDC's predictions, this could push Microsoft past Apple as the number two player in the global mobile software industry.
While this is big news for Microsoft, Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's mobile phone technology and trends team, suggested in the report that future functionality could skew projections.
"What remains to be seen is how these different operating systems – as well as others – will define and shape the user experience beyond what we see today in order to attract new customers and encourage replacements," Llamas said.
Regardless of what mobile operating system is used, text messaging is still the dominate application used on all mobile phones, and these numbers indicate that the mobile industry is only going to grow. As a result, marketers must rethink their strategies and execute campaigns that take advantage of increased mobile usage. In today's climate, text message marketing is an effective way to reach the growing number of mobile users in a short amount of time.
