The news of Android taking over Symbian as the most popular operating system has rocked the mobile world leaving Nokia bewildered. The confidence of those working on symbian application development has been shaken as Symbian development now does not represent a very promising picture. The dwindling market share of Nokia does not bode well for the future. There is growing competition in smartphones and Nokia in this regard has lost a substantial share. The wave of smartphone revolution sweeping in the mobile world has changed industry standards. Nokia in this regard has been too slow to catch up with the happening trend. According to analysts and market experts Nokia should have adopted another platform that would have helped it in capturing a large market segment. In the United States it is already next to non-existent whereas its rivals have made big leaps taking advantage of one of the largest markets for smartphones that US represents. The problem with Nokia is that it designs devices from a global perspective rather than being market specific and that is why Android and iPhone have taken the lead in US. Google's Andy Rubin hinted on Nokia adopting Android. There are speculations in the mobile industry that the new leader Stephen Elop might just opt for a change in strategy going either for Android or develop a partnership with Windows Phone 7. According to market forecasts by Gartner, Symbian's market share is stimated to drop further to a figure of 34 percent in 2011. The figure stood at 40 percent in 2010. On the other hand the predictions for Android are positive with forecasts that the market share for Android will witness an increase, taking it up to 22 percent in 2011 from 18 percent in 2010. Apple is expected to grow to 17 percent this year from 15 percent in 2010. The increased competition from rivals is putting pressure on Nokia and symbian applications development might suffer as developers are faced with an uncertain Symbian future.
