According to the analytics of the Gartner Research IT company, in the nearest years the gaming industry is likely to grow steadily.

If we look at the annual report ‘Gaming Ecosystem 2011’ published recently, we’ll see that basic technological and business models will go on developing in the already established manner till 2015.  Thus, the expenses on goods and services connected with computer and video games spent by software development companies are expected to reach $112 bln.

In 2011 millions of players all over the world will spend on similar entertainment about $74.426 bln, which is 10.4% more in comparison with the similar figures last year. At the same time gaming hardware (consoles and PC) will count for $17 bln, purchasing games (gaming software) – $44.73 bln and the rest $11.899 bln is expenses on online gaming.

By 2013 the expenses on gaming goods and services will reach $97.204 bln, when the market share of online games will double up to $21.453 bln. ‘The market growth means that for most people the expenses on gaming will become the basic item of their entertaining budget’, said Fabrizio Biscotti, the Head of Gartner Analytical Department.

If we talk about the software structure, the segment of the market with the fastest growing potential is the mobile games market. Its market share will increase from 15% in 2010 till 20% in 2015. ‘Smartphones and tablets are not exclusively gaming devices but they are becoming more and more popularity’, stated Tuong Nguyen, another manager from Gartner. ‘Now mobile games are the downloaded with an impressive speed’. And mobile application development is growing from day to day. If you don’t believe me, go to the App Store and make it sure.

The distribution of Android OS is going on with a frightening speed. Already at the beginning of August, according to the general director of Google Erick Schmidt, the number of daily activations in the world was about 20,000. Since that time, the popularity of Android among the users of mobile devices has increased by 50%. According to the recent data, published in Twitter by the vice-president of Google Andy Rubin, now in the world about 300,000 Android smartphones are activated. This tendency can also be followed in the Android market where mobile application developers place their apps and the number of them is really high.

In comparison with this, every day 157,000 iPhones find their owners. Apple reported that the October sales of the company’s gadgets including iPhone smartphones, iPads and iPod Touch were 230,000.

Thus, Google has overtaken Apple mobile devices all together.

If the Android based smartphones are sold with the same speed, in a month the sales will reach 9 mln smartphones. Annual sales will be equal to 108 mln gadgets.

By 2012 Google platform is likely to become the dominating platform in the world.

Nexus S operating on Android OS will soon appear on the smartphone market. These devices built by Google in cooperation with Samsung are predicted to compete for the market share with the latest version of iOS-powered devices – iPhone4. Moreover, Nexus S user experience is planning to be enhanced by an upcoming release of Android 2.3.
Nexus S devices support NFC, which enables users to perform basic money operations and with the help of chips embedded in various posters and ads extract information and upload it to Nexus S phones. Nexus S provides an opportunity to make SIP calling as Gingerbread OS comes bundled with VoIP features – the users will have a chance to make calls over the internet in the range of any wi-fi spot.
Moreover, Android 2.3. for Nexus S ensures improved GUI interface. It is aimed at harnessing touch screen features of the devices and enhances greatly user experience. Apart from this, Gingerbread allows managing the work of mobile apps. Hence, Nexus S users will leverage the device’s capabilities in full.
Google will undoubtedly rejoice not only mobile users but also software development companies. As with Android 2.3. the process of mobile app development for Nexus S smartphones will be streamlined and speeded up by the use of NDK and other features as garbage collection and new APIs.

The Digitimes analytical resource has informed that smartphones market exceeded level of pre-crisis period (2007) for the first time in the first quarter of 2010. During the 1Q 55.2 millions of smartphones were sold, and market growth amounted to 67% (compared to the first quarter of 2009).

Nokia becomes a leader on the market; it shipped 21.4 millions of smartphones and considerably strengthened its position in all the regions, particularly in South America. It is also noteworthy that share of Nokia touch screen models for the first time exceeded 50%. So, mobile software developers should consider this fact as a good sign for their innovative applications.

The second player on the smartphones market is RIM: it sold 10.59 millions of devices in the first quarter. It also managed to improve its position in Latin America: the growth was an impressive (297 percent!!!).
Apple is on the third place with 16% of the market. Last year it had only 11%. We sure that specialists who work at apps development for iPhones are happy for their beloved company .

In the fourth quarter of 2009 world smartphone supply grew by 39% and reached a record peak of 54.4 million devices. Apple was the most active player in the smartphones market. Nokia was still on the first place by the quantity of produced devices (this figure grew to 20.8 million units, while market share was 38.2%). The second place gone to Research in Motion with 10.7 million smartphones. So the market share of the popular BlackBerry smartphone producer was increased to 19.6%.

Such a result shows great future prospects for companies that provide the following services:
• iPhone application programming;
• mobile apps development for BlackBerry platform.

According to the forecasts from business analytics more and more people in the world will gradually switch to smartphones. It means that mobile applications for such platforms as iPhone, BlackBerry, WM and Android will come to be in great demand.

Results for 2009: the companies produced 174.2 million smartphones and it was a 15% increase in deliveries comparing with the past year.

As we know, the Motorola Corporation refused to sell its mobile unit. Now the management of this American electronic giant is betting on Android, an operating system developed by Google. Motorola plans to release from 20 to 30 new models of smartphones during the year 2010. And all these devices will use the Android OS. This information was reported to Electronista.com by some unnamed top-manager of the company. So Electronista, a popular online source of news about such mobile application platforms as Android, iPhone, BlackBerry etc., published this informal announcement without delay.

As for other “simple” Motorola cell phones, new models will use either the Qualcomm Brew platform or a special mobile platform that was developed by Motorola.

Now the company has three working groups of mobile developers and all their activities are somehow connected with the Android platform. First group works in the U.S., the second one works in China and the third one applies its ideas in industry in Korea. Their results can be seen in practice. Motorola has already announced four devices based on Android: Cliq, Droid, Backflip and Motoroi. But soon companies that work at application development for Android will offer their mobile soft not only for these four models.