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"Within three years, the notion of telecommunications companies trying to secure an advantage through exclusive rights to a handset will be dead," says Bruce McCabe, MD S2 Intelligence.

All software will run on all handsets, McCabe claims, and it will be the likes of Google with its Android platform and others, including Apple, that will open up the handset programming world to millions of developers; handsets will soon exploit virtualisation which allows software designed for one model to work on others too; most software won't sit on handsets, but will be online and accessed over networks, he notes.

"Telcos need to get ready for a world where they don't control the bundling of handsets, software, online services and phone plans, but their subscribers do. It is coming faster than they think," warns McCabe.

McCabe's view has been underlined recently by Nokia which is opening its Symbian platform to developers to challenge Google's Android, Microsoft's Open Windows and even Apple's iPhone with cheaper smartphones, with analysts expecting Nokia will use royalty-free Symbian as a loss leader to drive its growth.