gets. Originally less than willing to sell Windows to the mobile market, Microsoft is now making a concerted effort to penetrate that world. Con- cerned about a repeat of the Microsoft monopoly that occurred in the PC world, however, mobile manufacturers quickly pulled together following Microsoft's Windows CE entrée and created Symbian, a software consor- tium tasked to create a Windows-like mobile phone os that would not be dominated by Microsoft. Symbian members include Nokia, Motorola, Siemens, SONY/Ericsson, Panasonic, and Samsung. Currently, the Sym- bian organization dominates the market with roughly 80 percent of the market because of its numerous licensees. In response to Symbian's position, Microsoft did an end-run. Instead of trying to sell to the major manufacturers that already had a stake in Symbian (although Samsung has licensed both platforms, as well as Palm's), Microsoft went directly to the mobile network operators and con- tract manufacturers that buy large volumes of handsets with plans to Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Telecom Market Segments Telecom Market Segments influence them. More than 25 percent of all handsets are contract man- ufactured and can therefore be influenced by Microsoft. And while Microsoft has succeeded in some cases, they have met with challenges in others. One barrier that Microsoft faces is that the existing economic mobile model leans heavily in favor of the large manufacturers. They produce millions of handsets, while contract manufacturers sell hundreds of thousands, resulting in devices that tend to be more expensive. Some analysts believe that Microsoft's attempted end-run will fail, but it's still too early to tell. Microsoft may be able to appeal to corporate clients if they craft a way to integrate mobile and desktop applications to create a seamless service continuum. Th