Profits in the smartphone market are increasingly linked to a single business model, says Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf. At present there are two distinct approaches: integrated hardware and software, used by companies like Apple and Research in Motion, and a software licensing focus, favored by Google and Microsoft. The integrated approach is clearly winning, says Wolf, as evidenced by the growing control of BlackBerries and iPhones, and the secondary status of Android and Windows Mobile devices.
