by Jin Ke with Don More Move aside Batman and Ironman. For world domination drama, the real action this summer is off-screen and on our phones, er, mobile devices. Big handset players, notably Research in Motion and Apple, are leveraging dominance in their territories to attack each other’s turf – iPhone’s attempt to dethrone BlackBerry’s enterprise supremacy is the most notable example. Meanwhile on the OS side, on June 24, 2008 Nokia acquired the remaining 52% of Symbian it didn’t own and opened Symbian’s mobile OS platform to the public to compete with Google’s nascent-but-highly-touted Android mobile OS. Earlier this year, the Finnish company also bought cross-platform solution vendor TrollTech for $153 million, and in December 2007, mobile-PC interoperating player Avvenu. Google, lacking experience and handsets to push its platform, will be hard-pressed to take major share from the leading global platforms (see chart below) but it will be interesting to see their next move. Given the importance of mobile to Google’s ad-driven growth strategy, plus their cash and pluckiness, they are likely to do something big to follow their acquisitions of mobile social networking players, Jaiku and Zingku, last year. 
While hardware device vendors are kings of the mobile value chain jungle because they own the user channel, it is software that will drive future market success. iPhone’s blockbuster sales highlight the importance of software-first (rather than feature-first) mobile devices. RIM has taken note, launching a $150 million fund last May to invest in applications and services for its BlackBerry device and other mobile platforms; it’s called BlackBerry Partners Fund. Kleiner Perkins similarly launched a $100 million fund in March for iPhone application vendors called iFund. Given software’s criticality to the mobile device wars, Microsoft is a looming threat, with its ubiquitous enterprise application portfolio and widely installed mobile OS. Showing it means business, in the last 12 months Microsoft spent millions snapping-up mobile technology companies. Recent Microsoft acquisitions in the mobile space: Will Google be able to incorporate the mobile space into its search-advertising juggernaut? Will Microsoft be able to take its PC OS and apps success on the road? Who will win the battle for handset supremacy? Whatever the outcome, the mobile slugfest will help drive M&A and IT venture deal volumes in an otherwise slowing year. Stay tuned as the battle heats up after Labor Day. Technorati Profile | 
