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Competing with a Mac

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Re: Competing with a Mac

#71

Post by josh2600 »

guyzero wrote: post #66
josh2600 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better product is one the public can imagine. A disruptive product is one that the public cannot conceive of, such that its introduction alters the standards in an industry. A better product is the HTC8525[0] over the HTC8500. A disruptive product is the HTC8525 versus the iPhone. [0] http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32... - The leading WinMo smartphone in Q4 2006, pre-iPhone.

So while I will be the first to admit that I certainly didn't predict the iPhone, some of the iPhone's success was based on Apple leveraging their success with the iPod. The existence of iTunes and an ecosystem of third-party accessories based on the Apple 30-pin connector certainly helped the iPhone, not to mention Apple's brand cachet which was on an upswing at the time. it's an interesting thought experiment to co…

Some thoughts.

1) The ecosystem did not spring into life with the iPhone; a lot of vendors were unsure initially but there was obviously tremendous benefit to Apple due to the iPod industry.

2) Danger would not have been able to launch the iPhone for a multitude of reasons. Even as a part of Microsoft, they couldn't have done it. I could go really in-depth here, but Microsoft is really bad at Art and Politics, which I would argue were the keys to the iPhones success.

3) The iPhone is a triumph for a number of reasons, but I tend to think the social conventions the iPhone destroyed were the most interesting part. I mean, I was working at AT&T when the iPhone dropped.

Before the iPhone:

* Everything was free phone at the low end and $199 at the top end

* Apps were pre-loaded onto phones

* Carriers drove handset manufacturers choice of OS

* No one ever waited for a phone

* Manufacturers did not care about UI/UX

* Phones sold on spec sheets

After the iPhone:

* Most people forget that the iPhone launched at a price point of $499 with no subsidy. They failed but this was Apple's attempt to kill free phones, and they (sort of) did.

* App store (year 2)

* Manufacturers drove handset sales to Operators (and outside of operators)

* People line up for phones all the time

* Everyone cares about UI/UX

* Phones sell by Operating System (And UI/UX)

I could go on and on. There are so many things that changed because of design decisions by Cupertino.

No, Danger could not have done the iPhone. Not because of technical limitations, but because of politics. Wresting that much power out of such a reinforced fiefdom was a herculean effort with commensurate results.

Appreciate the insight though friend :).

Re: Competing with a Mac

#72

Post by canistr »

I hesitate to agree with this article given that that hindsight is 20/20. If anything, you could mark the decline of the BlackBerry with the introduction of the iPad.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#73

Post by sien »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #59
sien wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it. Working in corporate and government environments is an Apple free zone. Lower price competitors have repeatedly caught up and outperformed higher priced vertical companies that make the entire stack. Android is well positioned to do exactly this to Apple over the next decade. Phones and cheaper devices also seem to see this happen repea…

> Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it. Yet Apple has the most profitable segment of the PC market, they make more profit on PCs than any if their competitors; it turns out Mac-free corp/gov zones are not very profitable. Apple will keep dominating the high end of even developing markets, their profits will keep rising and they will continue not to be disrupted by Android,…

Corporate and government is profitable. It's just that the profits are shared by a plethora of companies. Apple failed long ago to get a foothold and gave up.

Apple don't dominate the high end of phones by market share any more. They do make more money out of it than anyone else at the moment. Good for shareholders but consumers are largely indifferent to profitability.

If HTC and Samsung went bankrupt Android would still be OK. They'd be replaced.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#74

Post by chipotle_coyote »

pekk wrote: post #58
josh2600 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was state of the art around the time the iPhone hit: HTC8525 [0]. That is not a phone, that is a ridiculously small screen welded to a slow computer with terrible battery life; and it was $299 on contract at the time. The disruption in the iPhone was technical, social, political and economic. [0] http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32...

Nah, the old Windows phones were just fine. Did many of the things we now pretend that Apple invented. But they were for nerds. And huge phones sell reasonably well today. The functionality was really already there. The "disruption" was aesthetics, marketing and ease-of-use. And in the end, it's a phone, not a cultural revolution.

The functionality was really already there.

While I think this is mostly true (Nokia fans love to point out that every possible smartphone feature appeared on at least one Nokia product which may have shipped in the 1800s), there is one way in which this simply is not true, and it's a way which really did change everything.

The browser.

The difference in 2007 between browsing on the iPhone and browsing on any other phone was kind of like, well, comparing desktop Safari in 2007 to trying to browse in 2007 with Netscape 4. Maybe not quite that good. Phones often had only one font available to them, had very limited CSS support, often had no Javascript support. Windows Phone and the Nokia Communicator were the best of what had been out before then, and to say "they were for nerds" is an understatement. Only nerds would tolerate them.

Look at articles after the iPhone's introduction about data usage -- it absolutely skyrocketed, and it was all being driven by the browser. For the first time people actually had a real web browser in their pocket, and it really did make all the difference.

It wasn't just a phone by any stretch -- what made it disruptive was that browser in combination with the touch UI (by far the best way to use a browser on a pocket-sized screen). Revolutionary, or evolutionary? You can make a case either way, but the iPhone didn't upend the smartphone market just because it was pretty and had great advertisements.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#75

Post by gibwell »

sien wrote: post #51
gibwell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I agree that Nokia and Blackberry were disrupted by Android, not the iPhone, Apple is gaining customers everywhere. 'Marketshare' is a flawed concept because it assumes a unified market of undifferentiated customers. Apple is simply not in the market of commodity devices. It never had any of that market to lose. Claiming that apple is losing those customers is clearly incorrect. If the story does unfold as it…

Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it. Working in corporate and government environments is an Apple free zone. Lower price competitors have repeatedly caught up and outperformed higher priced vertical companies that make the entire stack. Android is well positioned to do exactly this to Apple over the next decade. Phones and cheaper devices also seem to see this happen repea…

Apple makes 45% of all profits in the PC market. Nobody else comes close. That isn't a small segment - they are the clear winner.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#76

Post by gibwell »

sien wrote: post #73
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it. Yet Apple has the most profitable segment of the PC market, they make more profit on PCs than any if their competitors; it turns out Mac-free corp/gov zones are not very profitable. Apple will keep dominating the high end of even developing markets, their profits will keep rising and they will continue not to be disrupted by Android,…

Corporate and government is profitable. It's just that the profits are shared by a plethora of companies. Apple failed long ago to get a foothold and gave up. Apple don't dominate the high end of phones by market share any more. They do make more money out of it than anyone else at the moment. Good for shareholders but consumers are largely indifferent to profitability. If HTC and Samsung went bankrupt Android would…

Sorry - this has nothing to do with the profits being shared by a plethora of companies. Apple receives almost half of the profits in the PC market. The rest is divided between your plethora. Apple chose not to serve the unprofitable part of the market.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#77

Post by reiichiroh »

josh2600 wrote: post #71
guyzero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So while I will be the first to admit that I certainly didn't predict the iPhone, some of the iPhone's success was based on Apple leveraging their success with the iPod. The existence of iTunes and an ecosystem of third-party accessories based on the Apple 30-pin connector certainly helped the iPhone, not to mention Apple's brand cachet which was on an upswing at the time. it's an interesting thought experiment to co…

Some thoughts. 1) The ecosystem did not spring into life with the iPhone; a lot of vendors were unsure initially but there was obviously tremendous benefit to Apple due to the iPod industry. 2) Danger would not have been able to launch the iPhone for a multitude of reasons. Even as a part of Microsoft, they couldn't have done it. I could go really in-depth here, but Microsoft is really bad at Art and Politics, which…

Well, they tried with the Kin, right?

Re: Competing with a Mac

#78

Post by gibwell »

sien wrote: post #70
jryle70 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seemed to imply that SGI, Sun, etc are gone because they were full stack. I just offered counterexamples of non full stack companies that are also gone. There are simply no evidence that full stack is inherently bad, or vice versa. It's all specific to individual companies. > Non-full stack companies come and go. That's part of the strength Or more precisely, that's a benefit of hardware commodity. From the busin…

There is evidence that full stack is hard to keep going. In general computing devices there are only 2 companies left doing it that matter. IBM & Apple. The non-full stack companies that are gone have been replaced. The full stack ones have been replaced by combinations of non full stack companies. New non-full stack companies come in and get big. What new full stack company that matters that has been started in the…

You are contradicting yourself. You say that fill stack companies are hard to keep going and yet you say that non-full stack companies come and go even more easily.

By your logic, non-full stack companies are even harder to keep going.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#79

Post by sien »

gibwell wrote: post #76
sien wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate and government is profitable. It's just that the profits are shared by a plethora of companies. Apple failed long ago to get a foothold and gave up. Apple don't dominate the high end of phones by market share any more. They do make more money out of it than anyone else at the moment. Good for shareholders but consumers are largely indifferent to profitability. If HTC and Samsung went bankrupt Android would…

Sorry - this has nothing to do with the profits being shared by a plethora of companies. Apple receives almost half of the profits in the PC market. The rest is divided between your plethora. Apple chose not to serve the unprofitable part of the market.

Apple have tried to get into corporate environments. They tried to sell Macs to everyone.

Corporate computing is bigger than just buying PCs. Oracle, IBM, service companies, MS, Intel, CA, Cisco and all these companies make masses of money in corporate environments.

Re: Competing with a Mac

#80

Post by sien »

gibwell wrote: post #75
sien wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it. Working in corporate and government environments is an Apple free zone. Lower price competitors have repeatedly caught up and outperformed higher priced vertical companies that make the entire stack. Android is well positioned to do exactly this to Apple over the next decade. Phones and cheaper devices also seem to see this happen repea…

Apple makes 45% of all profits in the PC market. Nobody else comes close. That isn't a small segment - they are the clear winner.

6% market share is small.
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