[From Hans] "Nokia Corp. (NOK) and other handest makers are expected to see enormous growth in smartphone sales over the next few years, Carolina Milanesi, Gartner Inc. (IT) research director for mobile devices, told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.
Smartphones, handheld devices with PC-like capabilities such as Internet access and a host of bolt-on applications, are already big business, thanks in part to the hype surrounding Apple Inc's (AAPL) iPhone.
"We are expecting the smartphone market to grow strongly with royalty free operating systems like Symbian, Android, and Linux pushing deeper down into product portfolios," Milanesi said. "Apple's iPhone isn't huge in sales volume, but it helped energize the market. People are now walking into stores and asking for a smartphone, something that didn't really happen in the past.""
Read in full via CNN.