Popular iPhone Alternatives

A taxonomy of iPhone competitors
by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
February 21, 2009 9:54 AM

RBC smartphone chart Who can keep track of all the touchscreen smartphones — and their attendant app stores — that emerged from Mobile World Congress this week to compete with Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone?

RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky can. Attached to a report to clients released Friday is a handy chart of “emerging competitors” that covers most of the latest mobile operating systems: Palm’s (PALM) webOS, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile 6.5, Google’s (GOOG) Android, Nokia’s (NOK) Symbian S60 and couple of proprietary outliers.

The chart would be more realistic if it included the two smartphones battling most fiercely for the U.S. market: the iPhone and Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry.

But it’s hard to tell the players without a scorecard, and this is a good start. The full chart is posted below the fold, with thanks to AppleInsider.