Here’s why Verizon and AT&T don’t need to worry about suffering BlackBerry’s fate: Saturday, my colleague Andrea Peterson posted this chart illustrating how quickly the fortunes of mobile software companies have changed. A decade ago, in 2003, the phone software market was dominated by Nokia with its Symbian OS. Palm and Microsoft were Nokia's main competitors. BlackBerrys were just starting to become a mainstream phenomenon.
Five years later, in 2008, Symbian OS and Palm OS were losing ground, while BlackBerry OS and Microsoft's Windows CE led the pack. Apple's new iOS was growing rapidly and Android was still a minor player.
Today the market is dominated by Android handsets, with Apple's iOS as the only serious alternative. Nokia handsets running Microsoft software are a distant third. Palm and Symbian are dead and BlackBerry is close to it.