

It's Apple vs. Google in the New Phone Fight - niekmaas
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/12/phone-fight.html

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TomOfTTB
I have two problems with analysis like this.

First it ignores how early we are in the game. To use the PC Operating System
comparison we’re still in the period where people thought OS/2 and DesqView
were viable competitors. Yes Apple and Google are currently the frontrunners
but you have some big, successful companies like Microsoft and Nokia who will
literally do anything to get a foothold in this market.

My second issue here is this analysis ignores the vast number difference
between PC shipments and Cellular Phones. Windows really cemented control of
the market with Windows ’95 but the year after that only saw about 80 million
in total PC shipments. Compare that to the Cellular Phone market which is
projected to hit 5 billion this year. It’s much harder to dominate a market of
5 billion and I really don’t see any company controlling 90% of that.

In the end I suspect there will be a lot of competition out there with certain
platforms becoming more popular in various countries (I suspect the U.S. will
stay Apple vs. Google for example).

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joezydeco
The game is not early, it's almost over. Why? Because the O/S is just a
hardware abstraction layer now.

Android comes right out and says it. Linux is the HAL. Apple is a little more
coy about it ("oh, it's OSX underneath"), but then again what's with the
renaming the of O/S to iOS4? What does that fortell?

All said, it doesn't matter anymore. Android could be ported to OSX tomorrow,
and iPhone can run on Linux if it wanted. It's the application layer that
matters now. Microsoft and Nokia are scrambling to catch up, but there's
either nothing there (Nokia/Meego), or something that's not compelling enough
(Windows Phone) for developers to care about.

~~~
ROFISH
Never discount Microsoft, if only for the sole reason that they'll just throw
infinite amounts of money just to be relevant. For example: Xbox and Zune.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I don't disagree with your point in theory but I have to wonder about
Microsoft. I mean, they did pour a bunch of money and time into Zune and it
didn't work. Last Christmas NPD reported Zune taking 10% of the units sold and
that's pathetic. That's at the "My grandparents bought me a Zune because they
don't know what an iPod is" level of sales.

The most telling point regarding their phone platform is this: I'm a C#
developer. I'm in love with Silverlight as a technology. Yet I have no
interest in the new Windows phone platform. That says something big about
their chances IMHO

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skinnymuch
I think Zune only had 10% market share for the first year or two. They dropped
to 2% before Zune HD came out...so I'm betting they are at around 5% right
now. Yeah it's not that good, but if they ever end up solidly at 10% market
share again and stay there, I'll be impressed. I guess we're looking at it
from different sides, but I see 10% as an okay done job. Also I think if they
hit that, along with what they did with Xbox/360, the future doesn't look so
bad for Windows Phone OS's prospects.

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glhaynes
_Sales of Macs are slowing…_

No they're not; Apple's selling more Macs than ever before and pretty
consistently more each quarter than the previous (YOY).

(Completely unrelated: Lyons looks like John Hodgman in that picture.)

~~~
skinnymuch
Are you talking about Mac sales of the past number of years or just the past
year? I don't think they've really increased all that much in the past few
quarters.

~~~
troystribling
It is likely that they have saturated their market. Apple has 90% market share
in PCs > $1000.
[http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apple_...](http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apple_mac_owns_90_market_share_for_premium_pcs_costing_over_1000/)

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angstrom
In the next 12-18 months we're going to see a flattening of features added to
the phones. They've basically been adding feature subsets that mirror the
evolution of PCs, culminating with Internet integration, though this time with
seamless syncing of information between extant devices. The OS platform is
insignificant. Where people end up storing their data is all that matters.

This is why when people get into religious debates about Google Android being
open and the iPhone not, they've completely missed the entire significance of
the two platforms. They're both corporations, they're both responsible to
their shareholders. I would be perfectly happy if they split the smartphone
market in a stalemate.

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tedunangst
_Geeks can, and do, argue over the merits of these phones. But the fact that
the two are close enough to be compared side by side is what should have Apple
worried._

Geeks were arguing about the merits of the original iPhone compared side by
side to its competitors, too, but Apple seems to have pulled through.

