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MICROSOFT STILL IN THE PICTURE
To get a read on what operating systems warehouses are
using right now, the survey asked respondents which
OS they used for the majority (more than 60 percent) of
their warehouse mobile devices. As expected, the study
confirmed that for now, at least, Microsoft is king. A full
60 percent of respondents said the majority of their units
ran on the Windows platform. (See Exhibit 1 for the full
rundown.)
That could change in the very near future, however.
Although Microsoft released a new mobile operating
platform (Windows 10 Io T) earlier this year, indications
are that the market is moving in an altogether different
direction. Rather than defaulting to the latest Microsoft
offering, users are widely expected to defect to a rival
operating system: Google Inc.’s Android OS. Among
other benefits, Android, the operating system used in
an estimated 86 percent of the world’s smartphones as
well as other consumer electronics, has the advantage of
familiarity to users and programmers alike. A number of
major hardware vendors, including Honeywell Inc. and
Zebra Technologies, have already introduced Android-based handhelds for DC applications.
Indeed, when asked how they expected their OS usage
patterns to change over the next three years, 56 percent of
respondents indicated they planned to increase their use
of Android. While that aligns with the current industry
thinking, Microsoft nonetheless had an unexpectedly
strong showing in our poll. Nearly a third of respondents— 29 percent—said they expected to increase their
use of Windows in that period. (See Exhibit 2.)
This finding suggests that Microsoft may play a more
enduring role in warehouse mobile computing than
expected. The survey results didn’t reveal the reasons
for that, but Clint Reiser, ARC’s director of supply chain
research and the study’s leader, offered a possible explanation. Reiser speculated that the finding reflects the
warehouse community’s tendency to move cautiously
when it comes to adopting new technologies.
As an example of that, Reiser pointed to another of
the study’s findings: the revelation that more than a
third ( 35 percent) of warehouses are still using devices
with alphanumeric keypads, as opposed to the touchscreen interfaces found on today’s consumer smartphones. “These results, like the still-widespread use of
Windows OS, suggest that warehouses are adopting
modern mobile technologies at a more measured pace
than some customer-facing areas of businesses,” Reiser
said.
That’s not to say all warehouses are watching from the
sidelines. Of those respondents who plan to migrate from
Windows to Android, a sizeable share— 40 percent—
have already begun the changeover. To learn what they
expect to gain from the move, the survey asked those
respondents who are migrating to Android what impact
they expected the transition to have on their operations.
The most frequent responses were improvements in user
interface/usability, support for complementary devices,
mobile application development, and handheld hard-
ware performance. By comparison, fewer users foresaw
improvements in areas such as wireless communications
options, application software performance, wireless data
security, and preventing misuse of devices.
Microsoft Windows 60
Google Android 13
Apple iOS 10
Linux/Other 6
Google Android 56
Microsoft Windows 29
Apple iOS 18
Linux/Other 6
Data capture/scanning accuracy 85
Data capture/scanning speed 71
Visual information display 71
User ergonomics 50
Range of options for data capture/scanning 38
EXHIBIT 1
What operating system do the
majority (more than 60 percent) of
your mobile devices run on?
(Percentage of respondents)
EXHIBIT 2
Which OS do you expect to use more
of in your facility over the next three
years?
(Percentage of respondents)
EXHIBIT 3
What capabilities are most important
in a warehouse mobile device?
(Percentage of respondents who said the capability was
“very important”)
