NEW YORK ? With Apple unsurprisingly not present, digiday: Mobile panelists were free to sing the praises of competing smartphones such as Nokia and Research In Motion.

Everyone has an opinion about the rivalry between Apple?s iPhone, RIM?s BlackBerry, Google?s Android, the Palm Pre?s WebOS, Nokia?s Symbian and Microsoft?s Windows Mobile. Across the board, the panelists predicted that BlackBerry and Nokia handsets would out-compete Apple to dominate the smartphone space long-term.

?Apple is independent from its carrier partner AT&T, and that has pluses and minuses,? said Jennifer Byrne, director of business development at Verizon, Basking Ridge, NJ. ?There are certain conflicts that could be resolved such as making an ad-serving solution available to the developer community.

?Partnering with AT&T is limiting if they?re not also partnering with other distribution partners,? she said.

Ms. Byrne praised applications available in BlackBerry App World such as Facebook and Slacker, indicating that it is a worthy rival to Apple?s App Store.

Nokia recently threw its hat into the ring with the launch of its Ovi Store. Google has Android Market and Palm has App Catalog and Microsoft has Windows Marketplace.

?In terms of Nokia?s position, we have 50 percent smartphone marketshare worldwide,? said Mitch Paletz, head of premium publisher partnerships at Nokia Interactive. ?Apart from the U.S., Nokia has direct-to-consumer relationships everywhere else in the world.

?We target devices to specific regions based on which make the most sense for which audience in which part of the world,? he said. ?We ship a million phones per day worldwide, whereas Apple has sold maybe 15 million iPhones worldwide total, so its reach is much less.?

The iPhone has captured consumers? imagination, and Android is similarly consumer-focused, while BlackBerry, Palm and Windows Mobile have tended to appeal more to business users.

?There?s a dichotomy of the business world versus the consumer audience, using your handset for business purposes or having it be part of the makeup of who you are,? said Dave Gwozdz, CEO of Mojiva, New York. ?The iPhone is less about business and more about being an extension of the user?s personality.

?My kids like the iPhone as an entertainment and communications device, but it will be interesting to see what happens over time when they grow up and get to the business world,? he said. ?Everyone says BlackBerry is great for email and I gotta have it for business, but Apple will continue to be No. 1 in terms of the coolness factor over the next five-to-10 years.

?Apple has consumers pegged pretty well, and many are hooked on smart entertainment devices, but how will that translate as young consumers enter the business world??

Despite the buzz around Apple and RIM?s strong position in the space, some panelists warned the audience not to dismiss Google and Microsoft.

?Apple is at every part of the value chain on some level, but it?s hard to imagine that they?ll be able to sustain that,? said Naveen Tewari, founder/CEO of InMobi, Palo Alto, CA. ?For example, take the operating-system fight with Microsoft and Google.

?It will be hard for Apple to continuously cross all five parts of the value chain and succeed over a long period of time,? he said.

?The operating-system play is the most fundamental play, and if Android can come up with an OS that is different and far more scalable, they will get wider distribution than Apple and could potentially be the winner in the space.?

And while Windows Mobile did not get much love from the panel, even Nokia realizes that Microsoft is a company to contend with on many levels.

?From an advertising standpoint, Microsoft does have a unique opportunity to combine platforms to serve advertising that might be going into games, online and mobile as a way to build new advertising revenue,? Mr. Paletz said.

Verizon's Ms. Byrne even speculated that Bing could give Google a run for its money in the race to dominate mobile search.

?Microsoft is a great partner of ours, but they do have challenges, for example problems with Windows Mobile, which have caused some developers to shift to RIM, Android, Palm Pre as well as iPhone,? Ms. Byrne said.

?However, no one expected the Bing search engine to be as strong as it?s turned out to be,? she said. ?I also wouldn?t count them out to take lead in mobile advertising from Google.?