The report took into consideration five factors in its analysis, namely time to market, the ability to attract developers, the rate of device adoption, an efficient interface and user experience, and having a critical mass of attractive applications.

 

The analysis also took into consideration five contenders, namely Apple, the Open Headset Alliance, Nokia, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Palm. The points for each of the five factors were awarded from 0 to 2 as follows: 2 for strong, 1 for medium, 0 for weak.

 

Out of possible 10 points, Apple scored an impressive 9, followed by the Android marketplace with 7, and Nokia Ovi, also with 7. Microsoft came fourth with 6 points, followed by BlackBerry with 5 points, and Palm with 3 points.

 

The only part where Apple scored medium was the device adoption rate, where Windows Mobile and Nokia have shown the greatest advantage.

It may look like a great difference between Apple and the last two contenders, but we must also take into consideration the fact that Apple’s App store has been around for much longer. This also means that the Android marketplace isn’t doing badly either, since it’s only been around for several months.

 

Microsoft on the other hand has an impressive offer of downloadable software, however, the distribution channels have not been consolidated when they should have, which made the landscape very fragmented for Microsoft apps, the report found.