MS Powered Entrants Won’t Shake Traditional Handset Vendors

A recent study by Probe Research concluded that the Big 5 handset (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Siemens, Sony Ericsson) makers can hold onto their 75% market share in the face of the challenge from Microsoft powered upstarts. Sure they can, but that's beside the point. The real issue is what OS will they use to keep their hold? Probe's conclusion is based on handset makers rallying around Symbian to fight the MS onslaught. But Samsung is hedging its bets across all OSs and even Symbian proponent Sony Ericsson is keeping their options open.