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Report: Most Mobile Startups Hedge Their Bets By Developing Apps For All Major Platforms

No mobile operating system in the U.S. has won the hearts of developers, who are cautiously moving forward by porting their applications to all six major operating systems, according to ChubbyBrain, which tracks VC activity. To find out which of the six major U.S. operating systems (Android, iPhone, Palm (NSDQ: PALM), RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), Symbian and Windows) had a lead, ChubbyBrain analyzed all mobile VC deals in 2009 totaling more than $400 million (Updated to correct dollar figure).

Here’s the results:

Multiple OS: Of the 17 companies, 67 percent said they were developing their applications for multiple operating systems, and of those, three-fourths said they were developing for all six.

Single OS: Of all the companies, 33 percent said they were developing for a single platform. Of those companies, nearly half, or 49 percent, said they were building only iPhone apps. After that, it was RIM (20 percent); Windows (15 percent); Android (8 percent); Symbian (5 percent); and Palm (3 percent).

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Aug 19, 2009 2:57 PM ET

Majority of VC-Backed Companies Developing Apps for Multiple Os's Photo: ChubbyBrain

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Posted In: Mobile, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital, Research & Metrics, Technologies / Formats, Operating Systems, Companies, Apple, iPhone, Google, Android, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm

  • Thats interesting. Even though companies are developing for multiple OSes but out of those which are developing for single OS, iPhone is the most popular choice. That explains the flexibility offered by the iPhone OS

  • Tricia

    Thanks Anand for pointing that out. The post has been updated. Sorry for the error.

  • Anand

    Hi Tricia,

    Thanks for highlighting our analysis on venture-backed startups and their mobile OS preferences. 

    One clarification - our analysis looked at all mobile VC deals in 2009 in the US totaling over $400 million.  The 17 deals totaling $100M+ was the amount going into iPhone predicated apps over the last two years. 

    If any questions or clarifications, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly. 

    Warm regards,
    Anand
    asanwal(at)chubbybrain.com
    http://www.chubbybrain.com

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