Analysis Of The Competition Strategy Of Mainstream Operating Systems For Mobile Internet Devices

Google Android,Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows 8 are three mainstream operating systems in the MID industry.Their co-opetition dynamics would exert significant influence on the evolutionary development of the MID industry.The present study explores the co-opetition relationship,competition dynamics and strategic moves of Android,iOS and Windows 8 in the context of gobal MID industry by applying the analytical framework of value net、business ecosystem、platform strategy and competition dynamics,among others.This study found that Google and Microsoft position themselves as complementors with the MID hardware manufacturer,mobile operators,and contents/services/application program developers with their platform strategy.Google and Microsoft,manufacturers,operators and developers constitute as a positive business ecosystem,which leads to the rapid growth of the MID industry.For Apple’s case,however,it competes with other MID manufacturers while maintains complement relationship with contents/services/application program developers.As far as the operating system is concerned,Apple,Google and Microsoft are interdependent,as Apple also adopts Google’s content in its iPad,such as Google Maps and Google Search.It seems very important to creat complementary relationship with co-opetitiors.We also found that the platform strategy attracts different participants into the MID industry,and competition and cooperation between members tend to be complex and diversified.One of the critical determinant of future victory would be very likely hinge upon their business models.Apple provides free iCloud cloud computing services in iOS to begin having impact on free service of Google.Google spends 12.5 billion USD purchasing Motorola Mobility to assume offensive against Apple.From the point of view of industry development,the competition between Google and Apple is inevitable.Although the hardware competition between these two comes from iPhone to iPad,the battlefield would expand to mobile client device.Competition for applications comes from scramble for multi-touch technique to confrontation of iAD,NFC and even App store.How shall the companies within the industry respond to the war between Apple and Google?Apart from Microsoft in front,they are chased after by Amazon,Implications and future research opportunities based on these results are also discussed.