With Dell, Acer and Microsoft debuting new smartphones in the wake of HP?s planned acquisition of Palm, the already cutthroat smartphone market is getting even more competitive, according to Juniper Research.

The definitive agreement for HP to buy Palm and the Palm webOS mobile operating system for $1.2 billion is a sign of the times, with at least three other major electronics players looking to enter the smartphone market this year. And it is not as if the smartphone market is lacking in competition, or, for that matter, new entrants.

?The potential impact of computer manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Acer entering the smartphone space is increased competition, tighter margins and more pressure on existing players,? said Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper Research, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.

Dell?s smarphone efforts will be concentrated on Brazil and China, it appears.

?[Smartphone manufacturers] may focus on particular geographical areas or demographics,? Mr. Cox said.

?Dell, for example will concentrate on Brazil and China?several are targeting such growth markets?while others such as Microsoft and INQ are focusing on social networking, and therefore the youth demographic,? he said.

Microsoft already has its own mobile operating system, of course, but has shied from the hardware market even in PC domain, despite its massive dominance in the OS market.

?Windows Phone 7 is another player entering a crowded market, though Microsoft clearly has a reach that is second to none,? Mr. Cox said.

As for HP, the one asset that HP is purchasing not mentioned in the release is brand recognition.

And brand loyalty is becoming more and more important in a market where differentiation is harder and harder to achieve?although Apple still excels, according to Juniper.

Mr. Cox said that Palm may have lost out to other players as the PDA was superceded by the smartphone, but HP now has the unique chance to revive it.

Taking out the superlatives from the first lines of HP?s press release gives us: ?Palm?s ? operating system provides a ?platform to expand HP?s mobility strategy ? [over] multiple mobile connected devices.?

Mr. Cox said that the phrase is telling: One only has to look at the success of the iPad to realize that connectivity will be at the center of the next generation of consumer electronics devices, hence the interest from the consumer-electronics giants.

And in the device market, barriers to entry have been coming down for some time?if the company is big enough.

Many aspects of the PC market are now commoditized, with few differentiating factors but price, according to Juniper.

Screens, batteries, chips, casings and SIMs can also all be bought en masse for assembly.

And Michael Dell has demonstrated what can be done with a commoditized market.

Smartphone race opening up
With open source, even the operating system is open for any company to develop into its own-brand handset.

Google?s Android operating system has been making waves in the market, and its growth will only continue going forward.

?Android will be at the heart of most new entrants' smartphone initiatives?it will therefore become one of the dominant mobile operating systems in years to come,? Mr. Cox said. ?For that reason, it has huge potential going forward, though adaptations by cell phone manufacturers will mean that it becomes increasingly fragmented as an OS.

?It is also worth noting that a major part of Google's strategy in creating the Android platform was to enable search from which it can generate advertising revenues across all device types in the first place,? he said.

Many are asking: Will open source platforms prevail over closed platforms such as BlackBerry and iPhone?

?The market seems to be polarizing between open source and closed systems,? Mr. Cox said. ?RIM and Apple's models are essentially closed and this suits them?they have the control over their operating systems which means that they do not have to support multiple operating systems or?to some extent?handsets like an operator such as Nokia does.

?Eventually they?RIM and Apple?may open their platforms, but it is working well for the moment so nothing will happen at all soon,? he said. ?Open systems are likely to benefit from scale as can be seen by the number of carriers adopting Android.

?That said, it is already fragmenting and Symbian is fragmented already too.?