June 15, 2009

Draw a line from Cupertino to Mountain View to Sunnyvale and then back to Cupertino, and you get what one technology analyst calls the Golden Triangle for smart phones

These are the respective headquarters of Apple, Google and Palm, and collectively, they're pushing the pace of innovation for smart phones, creating a new center for mobile development and raising the bar on what consumers are coming to expect from the mini portable computers in their pocket.

Apple set the world on fire in 2007 with the iPhone, a powerful and slick mobile computer that was fun and easy to use. Google's Android operating system premiered last fall in the G1 from T-Mobile to strong reviews and will make its way onto 18 phones this year. And on June 6, Palm released the Palm Pre and its webOS, which many critics claimed was the closest competitor to the iPhone.

These companies, keep in mind, don't make the best-selling smart phone platforms; Nokia with its Symbian OS is the worldwide leader, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS leads in the United States. But the three valley companies, with their brand-new operating systems, are redefining the smart phone space with more intuitive interfaces, Internet integration and a focus on software that is forcing their more established rivals to scurry to catch up.