Introduction
As a dynamic social and market research company that operates in the very competitive marketplace that is Africa since 2010, we spend a lot of time thinking about how technology enables our work.
Between our partners in Nigeria, South Africa and the US, we have been driving high-quality qualitative and quantitative research across 30 Sub-Saharan African markets. In order to achieve this, our team relies heavily on robust tech stacks like reliable Android devices for mobile data collection using industry-standard apps like SurveyToGo (Dooblo), ODK Collect, Koboform, KoboCollect, ODK Aggregate along with proprietary software provided by our partners or customers depending on the nature of the project.
However, as we sit here in Q3 of 2026 heading into Q4 soon, it is clear to us that the entire social and market research industry needs to brace itself for a major shakeup in the application and Operating System market. Why?
Because the dominance of Android for mobile fieldwork and Windows for back-office data processing is no longer a guaranteed certainty. Here’s why every research agency must start planning for a multi-OS future.
The Rise of HarmonyOS: A New Era of Intelligent Ecosystems
We are watching the rapid ascendancy of Huawei’s HarmonyOS which has now captured 20% of its home market in China. Indeed it is quickly positioning itself as a serious, global competitor to Android. To understand the power of this mobile OS, one needs to look no further than Huawei’s new AVATR 12 EV which was created through a synergistic partnership between Huawei, CATL, and Changan. As such, this vehicle is a masterclass in intelligence, quality, performance, and safety.
But what makes the AVATR 12 so seamless is its software: HarmonyOS handles the intelligent computing and user experience, while CATL manages the energy and battery requirements. It is a perfect, efficient synergy. So if HarmonyOS can power a highly complex, intelligent electric vehicle with that level of reliability, imagine what it can do for smartphones or tablets?
In regards to the market research industry, this is definitely a wake-up call. For over a decade, we have defaulted to Android for our mobile data collection simply because it was the most accessible ecosystem for developers. As HarmonyOS expands globally, research agencies everywhere should expect developers of tools like Open Data Kit (ODK) and Dooblo to start porting their apps to this new ecosystem. Therefore we must prepare our IT infrastructures to support, test, and deploy data collection tools across multiple Operating Systems. Most importantly, those who fail to adapt will face hardware bottlenecks and vendor lock-in which will become costly in the future.
The Desktop Shift: The Rise of Desktop Linux
But the disruption isn’t just happening on our mobile devices; it’s also happening on our desktops. Microsoft is facing stiffer competition than ever before from Desktop Linux in the form of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Linux Mint, OpenSuse, Redhat (RHEL), CentOS among others. Every month or so, we see a municipality somewhere around the globe mandate Linux in their government installations in order to have “more control” of their destinies.
In an industry where we process vast amounts of sensitive consumer data, privacy has become a top priority. Desktop Linux offers research agencies a less bloated, far more efficient alternative to Windows. Moreover, it provides IT stakeholders with unprecedented control over their environments which allows us to avoid forced, repeated updates and strip away unnecessary background features that drain system resources. For a company like Infinite Insight, where capacity building is an ongoing process, there will eventually come a time where we will have to train our team on secure, privacy-first Linux environments which ensures that our data remains sovereign and our workflows uninterrupted by OS-level bloatware.
Conclusion: Plan for the Future
At Infinite Insight, capacity building isn’t just about training our field researchers; it’s about future-proofing our technology. The writing is definitely on the wall which means that the days of a single OS monopoly in mobile or desktop computing are numbered.
Whether it’s integrating HarmonyOS or a future polished release of Mobile Linux into our mobile data collection toolkit or migrating our heavy data processing tasks to efficient Desktop Linux environments, the industry needs to be proactive. Therefore research agencies around the world should begin auditing their software dependencies, demanding cross-platform compatibility from their app vendors, and training their IT teams today because change is definitely coming.
The tech landscape is quickly shifting beneath our feet so it is up to us to ensure our research continues to deliver high-quality results, no matter what Operating System is powering the devices.