I saw some news related to Microsoft Windows Phone that gave me pause for thought. Specifically, I read an article that stated:
Microsoft’s mobile platform reached new heights in the three months to July 2013 in Europe, making up 8.2 percent of sales across UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain
While 8.2% market share might seem insignificant, what’s interesting is that
At the same time last year, Windows Phone accounted for 4.9 percent of sales
That is, Windows Phone market share for the same five markets has increased by a little more than 3% over the last year. Accordingly, Windows Phone is a growing platform (in some markets), which means developers will eventually need to start considering it as a third platform. And throwing a third platform into the mix does change the variables in a native versus non-native argument in favor of an HTML5 approach.
Microsoft has deep pockets and has shown before that it will fight (and hang on) to create a market for itself (i.e. Xbox and Bing). I suspect that Windows Phone will continue to gain market share, albeit slowly, mostly at the expense of nominal platforms like Blackberry.
Consequently, HTML5 will continue on its path as an advantageous development platform; moreover, HTML5’s rise will most likely be at the expense of hybrid frameworks as there’s a point of diminishing returns for frameworks to support 100% of all native features across multiple native platforms. Plus, Amazon’s recent announcement that their Appstore for Android supports the submission of HTML5 apps only adds to the pro-HTML5 argument.
8% is an itty-bitty number, but I’ll be keeping an eye on Microsoft’s Windows Phone market share. And I’ll be watching the world of HTML5 closely. How about you?
This story, "8% is itty-bitty, but it matters" was originally published by JavaWorld.