Are There Too Many Smartphone Brands

I read an article on +Scredible today that asked “Are there too many smartphone brands” (linked below) and my first thought was that the writer was asking the wrong question.

The right question is; is there space for another smartphone platform?

Microsoft has been trying to break into mobile for years, and Blackberry is desperate to claw back some market share, but with Android and iOS dominating the market now, we already have two “must code for” platforms for developers to work with.

If a third comes in, be it Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, Tizen, or even a WebOS renaissance, how will small developers cope with increasing their coding efforts to support it?

While Apple and the bevy of Android providers can, with confidence, say that they have a wide range of apps available in their markets, any new platform will have to win over developers who could do without a 50% increase in workload, especially when providers of successful apps like UsTwo are reporting that only 5% of the users of their hit game “Monument Valley” have purchased their software legitimately.

More brands would lead to more competition in the Android market, and that could lead to better and cheaper devices for all. Its my opinion that Apple should license other brands to build their interpretations of iPhone hardware, too.

However, trying to get a third platform onto the market won’t be a case of courting buyers, at least initially, it’ll be courting all the small developers who don’t have the manpower to build for yet another platform, and providing tools to make it easier to adapt existing work.