Dag nabbit I had hoped to get away without having to write a predictions column this year, but no such luck. Look for that one tomorrow. Tonight, of course, there’s Google’s Nexus One smart phone to write about. Is it an iPhone killer? Hardly. And that’s not even the point.
Google’s Nexus One is a very nice smart phone as far as I can tell. I only read what you read and I haven’t yet played with one, but a couple nice folks who were on TWiT with me this week have tried it and liked it a lot, especially the screen. Yet many of the stories I’ve read today have presented this product introduction as a seminal break between Apple and Google with one trying to kill the other. Not even close.
Apple is very happy with its iPhone sales, thanks, and those are unlikely to be hurt much, if at all, by the Nexus One. Not that the Nexus One can’t be a huge success for Google. But here are the points everyone seems to be missing: 1) there is plenty of room in the mobile market for both Apple and Google, and; 2) this product introduction really marks the ultimate decline and fall of so-called “feature phones” and the rise to dominance of smart phones. Within two years there will be no more feature phones, at least not in the U.S.
The real losers today, then, are makers of feature phones and, maybe, Microsoft, which has the most vulnerable smart phone platform in Windows Phone.
The Nexus One introduction, coming on top of the iPhone, marks the true ascendence of smart phones as an alternative platform to desktops and notebooks. No, you can’t survive on a smart phone alone, the days of one computing device per person ended long ago.
But this does mark the beginning of the smart phone shakeout, when the industry matures and inevitably drops to no more than three viably competitive smart phone platforms. So just as you have Windows, Mac, and some form of ‘nix fighting it out for desktops and notebooks, so too we’ll shortly have three major mobile platforms to choose from.
iPhone and Android will be here for the long haul with the question being which of Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile, or Blackberry will die?
What’s your guess? My guess is that Blackberry will be the third standard, Nokia will eventually leave Symbian for Android, and Microsoft will buy Palm but then screw it up, losing its position almost entirely in the mobile client space where smart phones will soon dominate, selling up to a billion units per year.
Hey this did turn out to be a predictions column after all!
More predictions tomorrow.
I think you’ve got the top three correct – definitely iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Where do you get the idea that Microsoft will buy Palm and if so does WebOS win or does Windows Mobile get rejuvenated some how?
Cheers,
J
Just a feeling I have. I can’t imagine they’d buy Palm then kill WebOS, but then Microsoft has big plans for Windows 7 Phone or whatever it will be called (the one after 6.5). But I think enough is enough and they’ll make a break a la Chrome and see WebOS as a web app platform more than a traditional OS so they can call it anything they want, even Windows 8.
MSFT’s aborted effort to buy RIMM a couple of years ago when its share price dipped under $40 would seem to back up your contention that Redmond is looking for another mobile platform to add to their portfolio of WinMo and Danger. The Blackberry platform does seem better positioned than others to survive. They have a lot of loyalty among people who want a physical QWERTY keypad on their smartphones and within enterprises where seamless VPN access is important. And they probably have a patent portfolio to support an edge in those areas. It would make more sense for MSFT to cough up the cash for RIMM at any price, since access to cash isn’t a problem for them, but finding new sources of revenue growth is. A PALM acquisition just gives them yet another dying platform to ride into the graveyard.
Bob, it’s tradition that you write a predictions column!
You can’t break tradition!!!
Don’t make us go all Jihad in the comments section….
I wanted not to do it but certain people kept plying me with predictions and old habits are hard to break.
I too enjoy your yearly predictions column (and your accounting of how you did from the previous year). Keep it up!
Another vote here in favor of a predictions column, with a review of last year’s prediction. These are always great fun and very interesting.
The reason many love your predictions column isn’t just for the predictions, but for your brutal self-audit. It shows integrity, which matters because it’s rare.
Nice read, thanks. Can’t wait to read about your tablet predictions tomorrow.
Bob,
It was great to hear you on TWiT this weekend. I hope you make another appearance in the future. As for your list of the top three breakout smart phone platforms, I would substitute Blackberry for Windows Mobile. Microsoft has always been a slow starter. Just look at the XBox platform. A hardware generation ago it was a distant player in the console gaming market now it sits in a conformable 2nd place. Give WinMo time, they always find a way to pull it out.
This time I think they have simply run out of time. Microsoft could have done it right in the first place, but didn’t.
Microsoft seldom does anything right the first time. They just keep plugging at it, and they have the deep pockets to afford that. Usually their 3rd release is getting pretty good, and the 4th release dominates.
The real question here is if between network effects and the fast pace of smartphone adoption, Microsoft’s 3rd release will simply be too late to matter. Microsoft has gotten to be a big, rather slow company, like so many other older companies. Maybe their “Third time’s a charm” market entry business model is kaput.
“Give WinMo time”?
They’ve been trying since 2000! That OS was leading edge for a few years, then got bloated in its own bugs. Notification Queue Bug, anyone?
I ditched my WIndows Mobile device last week for an Android. I had to readjust some details of my daily usage, but I can’t be bothered with WinMo Crap anymore.
Nokia go Android? I don’t think so. They will stick with and expand Maemo.
Unless they adopt Android on the (relatively) low-end (instead of S40 or Symbian) and use Maemo for the high end. But even that doesn’t make a lot of sense, as to have that uniformity of experience and development they seem to want, they would have to port QT to Android, which doesn’t seem very workable.
You know more than I do but there can only be three and I just don’t see enough vigor from Nokia, except perhaps in court.
My Palm stock surged about six months ago when rumors were flying that Nokia might buy it. Nokia might go with Android, but it certainly seems as if it is inclined to hedge its bets.
Certainly, there is no sign that Nokia is remotely considering Windows.
They are already porting Qt to Symbian and other platforms (QNX, etc.). There is no reason they can’t put it on the Android platform. Qt already works very well in the embedded space, and scales very well from low-end embedded to high performance systems as well.
More likely than not, Nokia will put Qt on both platforms and see which developers choose, which will likely lead to Android winning over Symbian. Either way, their developers will have an easy time moving their applications in a compatible manner from one platform to another.
Really – I wouldn’t be surprised if they even told Symbian developers they HAD to port to Qt b/c Symbian was going to go away, and this is the road to the next platform – or if they haven’t already, that they have plans to do so once Qt has been firmly established on Symbian.
For the record – I have no insider information or insight from Qt/Nokia/etc on this. This is just my own thoughts on the subject. I do know from the Qt/Nokia publications, etc. that they are putting Qt on numerous platforms – but that’s all public knowledge.
>They are already porting Qt to Symbian and other platforms (QNX, etc.).
Sure.
>There is no reason they can’t put it on the Android platform.
Well they could, but there is a real impedance mismatch using C++ on top of Java (as opposed to the other way around), not to mention redundancy between QT and Android’s Java libs.
Actually, it seems like it would be easier to just use Android’s window system and kernel, and not even mess with the java libraries, but then what is the point of using android at all?
Sorry but in this case you’re wrong. Nokia has already completed porting of QT to Android because Android is just another Linux Distro and QT was ported to Linux quite a few years ago – Just ask the KDE Devs and Users who’ve been using QT since at least 2003, which is when I started using KDE 3 regularly.
In regards to Symbian dieing – Not likely. Nokia is pushing that towards the basic phone models (including feature phones) as it’s pretty robust and works quite well. Yes it’s not going to be useful to much longer as Mameo and Android really take up the Smart Phone markets but don’t count it out as yet because as someone else said, it’s not the OS but the Carriers here in the States (Verizon/Sprint-Nextel/AT&T) that will make the decision and all of them want a locked down feature set that they can nickle and dime you to unlock.
Bob, I don’t buy the “only three OS platforms” analogy.
I see mobile shaking out into a pair of markets, each a two-horse race.
iPhone/Apple will duel with Android in the consumer market, while RIM/Blackberry and Windows Mobile fight for the enterprise.
iPhone and Android have zero interest in meeting the needs of corporate IT.
Meanwhile, RIM’s purchase of Torch Mobile allows it to address its biggest Achilles Heel, crappy browsing.
Windows Mobile fires the next shot, my incorporating Sharepoint Mobile in the new Office Mobile 2010 package – just in time for companies to start opening their intranets to mobile devices.
More than enough to keep things interesting, but it’s not really going to shake out into a single funnel.
I’ll have more to say about Microsoft’s likely mobile strategy tomorrow, but I can’t agree that Google is ignoring the Enterprise with Android. Just the opposite.
Google is positioning themselves to be a serious provider of email services to companies and large corporations. When you look at how much companies are spending to maintain their email systems there is definitely an opportunity. Google can do this very well and very inexpensively.
Blackberry is a wonderful service. But it is something you “add” to your email system, bringing in new servers and software. They have done a great job and the “total” package works beautifully — hence the reason there are so many people using them. With a new smart phone and a good email service a Google could provide an equally good and highly integrated solution that would rival Blackberry.
I’m not sure I agree. The iPhone will open Office attachments and has support for Exchange. It can also be remotely wiped clean. Seems like Apple does have interest in the Enterprise market.
Google probably has many reasons to be interested in the enterprise market. But just the fact that nobody wants to carry two devices should be enough–eventually, if you don’t do enterprise, you eliminate a lot of customers.
> iPhone and Android have zero interest in meeting the needs of corporate IT.
Not zero:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_Guide.pdf
There are a few other minority/wildcard players that you forgot to mention, but you’ve pretty much got the right idea. Samsung has its Bada platform that it’s trying to push to defend the middle ground between featurephones and smartphones. Nokia is busy tooling around with Maemo, and there are other weird ones like Access Linux Platform and things like that. I don’t think that the field will whittle itself down to three – i’m thinking more like 4.
iPhone and Android are obviously here to stay, as is Blackberry, though if i had to guess, not in its current form. Bada will be the Bing of the smartphone world – eking out enough of a beachhead to be irritating to all of the other kids at the party, but too much of a wank to actually matter. Nokia will go down swinging, but Maemo development is too slow and S60 is too antiquated (though, like any ancient platform, it will continue to maintain a very small but dedicated userbase, perhaps with marketshare roughly equivalent to what Palm has now). The 4th spot, in my opinion, will be a toss up between Palm, (who has serious potential once it breaks out from Sprint and gets on some more 850/1900 carriers in Europe), Windows Mobile (if, and ONLY IF, Windows Mobile 7 blows every other platform out of the water, and Microsoft milks their hardware partners for all they’re worth), and something yet to appear from behind Door Number Three. Never write off Door Number Three, right Bob?
If I had to call the winner of that 2010-2011 smackdown right now, I’d call it for Palm, but they have a LOT of work to do before they’re there. Principally, getting more devs and apps in their store, getting on more GSM carriers, and beefing up their hardware. They’re clearly focusing on the sex, but they need to get higher-quality hardware for their platform – something that they, being vertically integrated, are at a disadvantage with compared to Microsoft, who can tell its hardware partners to dump as many Tegras and Snapdragons into their handsets as they want.
My two cents, spend them how you want, Bob.
PS: I was waiting for the prediction column this year – don’t walk out on us!
I do buy the three OS argument. I just don’t know if MS can afford to be left out.
@Gio: “I do buy the three OS argument. I just don’t know if MS can afford to be left out.”
I totally agree that MS can’t afford to be left out — but so what? What can they possibly do about it? Sure they can buy Palm (as Bob suggests) or RIM (as others have suggested — though one would think that if they were going to buy RIM they would have already). But have you all forgotten that Microsoft already bought Danger. How did that work out for them? They can’t afford it, but can’t do anything about it either. Even if they would somehow make WinMo as good as Android (highly doubtful), why would any hardware maker choose to pay for WinMo when they can get Android free???
I also definitely agree with the three OSes maximum. At some point in the not very distant future, any mobile OS without *major* *current* developer support will be done for. There is no way 4 or more OSes will get the needed level of dev. support — whatever support they get will be the dregs, programmers who are only capable of copying, badly, other better work. There is just too much money to be made writing Apps for the mobile OS X for anyone with real talent to waste their time porting their stuff to the number four OS (which will probably have very few customers willing to PAY for Apps (as opposed to pirating them). Heck, the number 2 & 3 OSes will have a heck of a time attracting the cream of the crop developers as is. RIM is in deep trouble at this point with third party Apps.
In the desktop OS space, for a good decade Windows was the only OS to attract comprehensive developer support. Apple’s market share was down to 2-3% before they finally started clawing their way back. I don’t see any way there can be a viable #4 or #5 mobile OS a couple of years from now.
Why does there need to be a top three who dominate market share? Surprisingly RIM has been gaining market share the last couple years, Symbian has been the one losing share, though still selling more units as the market gets bigger. Ultimately it all comes down to technical decisions and there have been blunders galore from all these platforms, so I think some new contender will come in and lay waste to these legacy platforms. The iPhone is too closed and nobody really wants to code in Objective-C. Android muffed by choosing Java and using so much XML in their platform. WebOS is a mistake, the web stack was a bad choice. Symbian is fading into irrelevance, people always complained about their platform and strange C++ dialect anyway. Windows and Blackberry are footnotes.
Corporate email integration as a USP is rapdily being commoditised so RIMs primary advantage over other platforms is rapidly eroding. Availability of bespoke corporate applications on smartphones could be the next battleground.
I think a key reason for Windows success was the ease of development for the platform. Visual Basic and, around the time it started to become ubiquitous, Borland Delphi, made Windows a platform anyone could develop for – streets ahead of the development tools for any other platform (in terms of ease of learning and ease of use – I’m sure other platforms had far more technically capable development toolsets) – and corporates adopted it in droves.
At the moment all smartphone platforms are complex to develop for and have limited tool support. Imagine how many iPhone apps there would be if you could use VB for development!. If Microsoft can deliver a compelling development toolset for WinMo7 (VS2010 maybe?) they could get back in the game and they would appeal strongly to corporates.
Sorry, a little off topic: I have subscribed to thus blog as a podcast in iTunes. However only episodes up to Dec 16th (the infamous FedEx Christmas card episode) are showing as available for the podcast in the Apple store. Were you aware of this, and will it be fixed soon? Or am I doing something wrong, and I am the only one having this problem?
We’ve been grappling with a bug in a WordPress plug-in we use to post iTunes. There’s a hack but I’d like a real solution. We thought we had one tonight but it didn’t work. Back to the drawing board…..
Personally, I still download things the old fashioned way. But your friend Leo, over at TWIT, is an expert at getting tons of his podcasts on iTunes.
[…] Robert X Cringely takes the “No,duh” position that Android and iPhone will rule, with RIM hanging on to its few loyal crumbs, Nokia will abandon Symbian for Android and Microsoft and Palm will perish fighting over the same parachute that won’t open in time. Posted by Lastangelman at 11:06 pm | View Comments | Links to this post View the discussion thread. blog comments powered by Disqus Links to this post […]
Of course, there are two possible paths. First, Microsoft could buy RIM. Second, Apple and Microsoft could team up. This could happen if Google really starts to encroach on Microsoft’s productivity and enterprise franchises. It would also help sell more Apple products into large corporations.
I’d agree on the top 3 if Blackberry had any kind of sales figures worth mentioning outside of the US. RIM found a way to work around the fragmented and lagging US services for data over mobile networks (be it gprs, edge, 3g, etc) and offer mail over mobile connections regardless. This never had the same appeal in Europe and Asia where their devices are regarded as proprietary, unecessary, and overpriced.
They might be able to keep holding on in the US, but unless they can live on that alone, there will be a third global player.
I think Apple will loose their independence over SJ’s dead body… which kinda means that a LOT depends on when he shuffles off to the great app-store in the sky. If he were to die this year, then I think some kind of defacto “MS buy Apple” scenario (with of course, sufficient hedges to satisfy the regulators) is a big possibility – MS have the cash, and Apple with SJ is just a bunch of shareholders who want the best return on their money.
Er… I mean “Apple WITHOUT SJ”!!!
Microsoft can NOT afford to buy Apple. Microsoft has 52 billion in current assets and Apple’s market cap is 193 billion and rising. With the rapid growth of Apple’s market cap, MS would have to offer a significant premium to Apple shareholders which would mean offering them stock. Microsoft’s stock has gone no where over the past 5 years so that would be a hard offer to make.
By some time later this year or early next year, Apple could reach the same market cap as Microsoft. The difference being that Apple is growing and Microsoft is not.
Apple shareholders would never agree to an MS merger for exactly the reason you cite: they want the best return for money. Merging with MS would wreck whatever share value was left after SJ goes. They would sooner merge with Google.
[…] because I generally enjoy his writing, it’s from Robert Cringely: “iPhone and Android will be here for the long haul with the question being which of Symbian, […]
I think the main development evident in yesterdays launch event was, however, not the death of the feature phone, but the end of the carrier branded phone as well as a (further) power shift from carriers to phone manufacturers and software companies.
HTC used to build phone for and branded by T-Mobile – now they are building a phone for Google that is sold on a web-platform where T-Mobile becomes one option that you can select at the end of the shopping process. And Google said that they strive to sell more and more phones in this way with more carriers also lined up to become options (Verizon, Vodafone).
I agree and it is inevitable. It’s difficult for the carriers to differentiate themselves much especially when you can buy the same phone from multiple carriers. AT&T/iPhone is the exception but that exclusivity may not last much longer. As a result, the carriers basically are selling a commodity and that means they will fight each other for low profit margins.
In Canada, the iPhone was originally exclusive to Rogers, for a little over a year, now it is available on all three major wireless players: Rogers, Bell and Telus. Phone / Carrier exclusivity will finally be gone in North America.
Nokia’s plan is to transition their smartphones to maemo, which now that it’s based on the Qt framework has a real chance of becoming a tier-one software platform.
When iPhone came out, Nokia correctly realised that the software platform is the key to success in smartphones. Symbian doesn’t cut it and Android didn’t exist, so they bought Trolltech to get Qt, an excellent cross-platform software toolkit similar in scope to .NET on Windows or Cocoa on Mac. They are now rapidly rolling out advanced animation and display technologies into Qt and have fully open sourced it. Android definitely has an advantage as Google has thrown enormous effort into it and has right the software-focused culture, but as the largest handset maker in the world Nokia can’t be discounted just yet.
The main question is, can Nokia successfuly transition into focusing on software primarily over hardware? This is why Apple only has essentialy one iPhone hardware platform, the hardware doesn’t realy matter and is just a vehicle for delivering software. If Nokia embraces this culturaly then they have a chance in the smartphone arena as they have made very astute first steps, if they don’t they will fail and be doomed to life as a low-margin basic handset manufacturer competing with the pacific-rimmers.
Simon Hibbs
Palm Pre, Nokia N900, Neo Free Runner etc. those are the phones to watch out for.
Bob,
Something I have not been hearing much about is the price of all this. The Nexus, by itself, is $500. When you think of the many other technologies you can buy, like a laptop, it does not seem worth it. Yes, it is small, can fit in your pocket, and can make calls…but it all of this really worth $500? Not for me, and I am in I.T.
Another thing which is rather concerning for me is the cost of being connected and having a family who also wants to be connected. I pay for telephone, cell phone, cable TV, and Internet (for both home and mobile). This is outrageous, considering all of these services are just different forms of sending bits from one place, to another. I live in the Midwest (St. Louis) and my monthly communication bill is almost as much as a mortgage payment, if not that, it clearly is more than a new car payment.
If I was single, I might sing a different tune, but I am married, with children, and everyone wants to be connected…and it truly costs an arm and a leg. How does this pertain to the Google Phone?
Rather than some new fancy technology with Android, I was looking for a new business model which would lower my cost of keeping my family connected.
>> my monthly communication bill is almost as much as a mortgage payment
Welcome to laissez faire capitalism. The data pipe is just a pipe, and should be treated as public utility. Those countries that do so (either with a public supplier or regulated private ones) will prosper. Those that practice Social Darwinism, will fail. We’ll fail. There is no point to having multiple, incompatible capital sinks in these networks; which exist only to gain an unregulated monopoly through attrition. One country, one network. One world, one network, for that matter. There is no need for private profit for a public utility.
Sort of connected, David Brooks’ column yesterday in the Times discussed the schism in this country, but in a lexicon I would not have expected him to figure out: the educated class versus the Tea Baggers. I couldn’t quite figure out who he supports, but his description is correct. So long as the Tea Baggers, aided by obstructionist Republicans who won’t quite admit their loyalty, can control government, then wastefulness in the name of capitalism (and against public investment) will continue.
…because the US Postal Service has been such a forward-thinking, resourceful, and responsive entity with prices that have gone down with respect to inflation, absent any private sector competition.
Yeah, right.
I have to agree with Robert. The comparison to the Postal Service is bogus. The comparison should be to the road system. The Pipe should be a utility like the roads. Before the Government (us) took over regulation of the roads they were a mess. Mostly mud and poorly done. Now we have great roads everywhere. Private companies still get involved working on roads and utilities but it is the Government (us) that funds and runs it. This would in fact be a great place for making a public utility.
Jim, I understand your point, but you’re ignoring other aspects of the analogy.
If there were no scarcity or competition driving the market, we wouldn’t have the speed race in mobile data delivery. A better understanding comes from how we handle television bandwidth.
Look at how long the FCC held onto the NTSC-525-line standard for broadcasting before finally upgrading.
Gosh, it would be really nice if every phone were compatible with the single standard, but then there would be awful backward compatibility, and a fraction of the incentive for improvement.
Even with the recent digital TV transition, it took so long to implement that the allocations couldn’t keep up with compression technology, and now the broadcasters have WAY more pipe than they needed. They literally don’t know what to do with the sub-channels, so we have 24-hour local weather and home-shopping, and God only knows what.
Government is too slow to upgrade the system. Period.
RIM will likely survive no matter who the 3 main players are as they have the corporate and government markets to fall back onto which none of the other players really have, Unless MS can come up with something that has truly unique and compelling features they are dead in this area – just like all of their other efforts in the consumer electronics area. It will be an interesting race especially as technology changes over the next few years. with the emergence of tablets. Anyone willing to take bets on Microsoft being a player in this new environment let alone the dominant player.
“What’s your guess? My guess is that Blackberry will be the third standard, Nokia will eventually leave Symbian for Android, and Microsoft will buy Palm but then screw it up, losing its position almost entirely in the mobile client space where smart phones will soon dominate, selling up to a billion units per year.”
You’re almost right.
Palm will die. Web OS doesn’t cut it compared to iPhone / Android / Blackberry. Microsoft will never buy Palm as it doesn’t give them anything. MS need new technology but Palm only have Web Kit and under-powered APIs, with Exchange support licensed from MS. Also Palm don’t have a substantial Web OS user-base, and prior to that they just licensed Windows Mobile anyway. So, what would MS actually be buying?
Nokia will ship Android phones when developer take up of Maemo is limited.
Microsoft will buy RIM, and then either keep it proprietary (the PlaysForSure to Zune strategy), OR they will licence it out as they new Windows Blackberry to various handset makers, including Nokia, who will add it to their Android phone line.
Don’t rule out Microsoft.
They could release an OS that’s as good as Apple’s iPhone by copying the’re look and feel and as easy to program too by using purely c sharp for 3rd party apps and hiding more of the uglyness of Windows programming (COM etc) they could do this.
If they do this, developers would flock to them in droves and Apple’s USP would suddenly be a lot less unique because Objective C is a barrier to entry while c sharp is less so in my oppinion.
yes, the days of MS being a player in dev tools are probably over.
Any programmer too stupid to be able to learn Objective C is highly unlikely to write anything worth buying. The idea that “developers would flock to [WinMo] in droves” is beyond laughable.
Just look at the current sales figures for iPhone vs. Android ports of the same app right now: the iPhone version is outselling the Android version by what, 50:1 or 100:1? (Several devs have been kind enough to publish their sales figures. Google it). Knowing this, would anyone but a congenital moron “flock” to write for WinMo? (I appreciate that there are people *still* writing for WinMo, but there is a big difference between not yet deserting a platform and “flocking” to it).
Exactly. If you’re unable to teach yourself Objective-C, then you should give up on programming as a vocation.
Objective-C and Interface Builder were cutting edge a couple decades ago, but these days I find developing in C# much more pleasant. (Specifically, when it comes to hooking up messages to interface objects. Though I still have a nostalgic sense of how cool it was that the .nib file contained streamed instances of the interface objects.) Fortunately, C# is an option for iPhone apps now.
Bob is right… market maturity will consolidate the options around 3 platforms.
Microsoft will *try* to play catch up with Apple and Google but quite frankly its late and they have become too big to be able to turn the ship and put out a compelling solution. But given their girth and $$$ I could easily see them trying to buy RIM…. But some how I see the Canadian government throwing a monkey wrench in that effort.
The big questions with the MS buying RIM idea is:
1) What would it cost MS – RIM has a rich valuation these days
2) Could MS ever recover their investment in RIM
3) If viewed negatively could this acquisition be the end of Steve Ballmer
3) Would they be able to avoid turning RIM into MS and destroy the value that RIM brings
4) Even if they bought RIM would it provide them with the pathway to the future which they don’t seem to have right now ie. is this a short term purchase to buy back into the mobile space versus a long term investment
I don’t see how the market *can* shake out as long as hardware is still tied to particular networks. The competing platforms right now would more properly be described as iPhone + AT&T, Android + Verizon, Palm + Sprint. Those of us who simply can’t tolerate AT&T’s network, or others who live in a coverage area that’s only well served by one provider have limited options.
Network exclusivity deals skews the competitive landscape, and have the potential to let bit players hang on longer than they might otherwise. Palm, for example, might be able to hang on as long as Sprint doesn’t get to carry the iPhone or the newest Blackberries and androids.
Also, if MS wants to buy its way into the market… RIM is the logical acquisition, not Palm. Palm brings with it neither customers nor developers nor technology. RIM has the customer base and the enterprise technology, and it’s simply easier to imagine how Microsoft would integrate it into its existing products and market it to their exchange customers.
you got that right. time will resolve this too. even pots was this way for awhile. You couldn’t go to the store and buy a POTS phone, you had to get it from your ‘carrier’.
I have used all flavors of mobile OSes over the years (I have worked in companies making software for the “convergence devices). various flavors of Palm, Symbian, RIM (which is a Mail Phone and not a Smart Phone in my mind), Windows Mobile, the Sony Ericsson thingies, and now Android.
One thing is sure: Palm and Windows Mobile are being eaten alive by the other OSes out there.
Myself, after ten years of assiduous and loyal Windows Mobile usage on my own personal device, I have ditched it in favor of an Android phone.
I predict Bob will make some 2010 predictions.
I also predict Bob will celebrate another birthday 2010. I already have your birthday card. 🙂
[…] Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) are smartphone winners, who are the losers? (I, Cringley, Above the Crowd, Infectious Greed, MarketBeat, Brainstorm Tech, […]
55th
• No platform shakeouts in 2010, or at least before widespread LTE FCC qualifications
• MSFT won’t give up on WinMo7, but won’t move to a coherent mobile/handheld development strategy until 2011
• Android pre-eminence is the opium of lazy tech commentators
• Given the iPhone app explosion, in what sense is Objective-C a barrier to entry (other than the purchase of a used Mac mini)?
Bob – When I heard you on TWiT I was hoping Leo would announce NerdTV Season 2 would soon be on the TWiT network. Please tell me you two at least discussed the idea.
In the desktop war, a single dominant platform made sense. Applications were complex and had very complex environments to run on. Each application had multiple windows and you were expected to run each with dozens if not hundreds of threads.
This is not the desktop war. Most phone applications are small enough to be portable between platforms. I don’t know any gamers, but the iPhone developers I do know tell me that programming the application itself is straightforward. What’s difficult is figuring out what type of app you want and the general way it should work.
All of the developers think the effort to port their apps to Android will be simple compared to desktop applications. They know the app and how it works, the coding will fall into place. The only issue they do have with Android is that Android’s hardware is not well defined. Screen size to use? Where should buttons be placed? Does this phone have this feature?
So, there won’t be one dominant platform, and as long as the phone has a big enough base, most of the developers will port their apps to each platform. The question is whether they all can make it.
Android will make it because Google doesn’t care about its profitability. In fact, they don’t even care that much about Android or their own Smartphone. They simply want the Internet to work for Google, and Android and the Nexus One helps in that respect. Google didn’t hide the fact that HTC made the Nexus One. My prediction is that the next Google Phone will be made by Motorola.
Google’s big concern is Microsoft’s deal with Verizon. We saw it a week or two ago when suddenly all Blackberry users found that Bing became their default search engine. Even Motorola’s Droid could be co-oped in a similar way. But, the Nexus One can’t. You want the Nexus One, you have to do it Google’s way.
Apple will make it because they have the iPhone. The next version of the iPhone will include LED flash and a better camera. It might even include a widget interface. Apple will also end its exclusive arrangement with AT&T because it no longer benefits Apple (although it still benefits AT&T. Verizon has a better network, better customer service, and maybe better in every way. But, AT&T has the iPhone), Apple is still in an excellent position. They just finally got a bit of competition they can’t ignore. The iPhone will keep up with the competition.
RIM is the one currently in trouble. Their two outages didn’t help. RIM’s big advantage is they’re known for their keyboards. However, the keyboard on smart phones is dead. Palm tried, but it didn’t work. The Droid’s is nice, but most people find it too difficult to type. Physical keyboards have to be oriented in either landscape or portrait orientation, but people use their smart phone in both orientations.
RIM still has the corporate market, but they need to start producing smartphones sans keyboard. They need to break free from the phone company’s control of their product. It’s an embarrassment when Verizon does things like push out that Bing update. There will always be a business market for the crackberry, but the true market is the consumer market and that’ll lead the business market. Apple showed this with the iPhone. The iPhone wasn’t a business phone, but once people got it, they demanded their business support it. The days of corporate run phones is coming to a close, and that’s unfortunately RIM’s market.
So, Android and the iPhone will prosper and each will introduce incremental improvements. The Android will get a bigger market share. It has to in order to survive. You have at least four companies producing Android phones and it being sold by all U.S. carriers. However, the iPhone will still have a healthy slice of the market and developers won’t abandon it.
Palm is dead. Palm is behind and doesn’t have the resources to catch up. Microsoft might try to buy it, but they’ll have as much success with it as they did with Danger, Zune, and Project Pink. If Microsoft does buy it, they need to abandon everything else and put all their effort into WebOS, but they can’t because WebOS is Linux based.
Microsoft is losing the war. They have the corporate market, but they have had no luck outside the desktop. Setup boxes are Linux based. The XBox is popular, but not profitable, and there is no XBox handheld unit which is where gaming is going. Windows Mobile is a shrinking market share despite its tight integration with the Microsoft corporate environment. Buying RIM is not a possibility due to monopoly concerns. The only way Microsoft can buy RIM is if RIM becomes insignificant.
“The XBox is popular, but not profitable, and there is no XBox handheld unit which is where gaming is going.”
Hmmm, I smell Windows Mobile going towards music and gaming… In fact I just Googled it and many seem to agree….. Will this become WinMo’s saving grace?
“The Android will get a bigger market share. It has to in order to survive. You have at least four companies producing Android phones and it being sold by all U.S. carriers.”
Yes I agree and this is inevitable given time. Unless the inability for the different phone manufacturers to make similar devices are so far from each other making application compatibility a problem, but I don’t think that will be too detrimental to the proliferation of the android OS product.
What Robert said in his column I foresee is true. All phones will be smart phones with time. This is where Android money is worth. Android is given free of charge, and soon we will see the $50 android phone and the rest will be history. Can Apple compete with that is not known just yet, but maybe they don’t have to. As an Apple user for 30 years, I hope Apple can continue to make a product that is compelling to buy despite its closed environment. I still think though that Apple has quality advantages over android in that it will integrate all of its products with better results, including the obvious new tablet mac.
I agree RIM is the best choice for Microsoft to buy not Palm. There is nothing in palm at the moment that Microsoft does not already have. RIM is the more obvious choice because of its business professional market they have entrenched. This is the MS bread and butter it may wind up losing.
The thing about Microsoft is they actually have the pieces in place to create a ecosystem something like Apple, but they just can’t pull it off, they just do not have the ability to pull it off like what Apple has done with iTunes / iPhone / iPod / Appstore and the forthcoming tablet. System integration at its finest. And the tablet should further this. Also look for an AppStore for Mac OS X desktop in the future. Microsoft could have thought this thru better because with xbox, zune, zune HD, winmobile, its all a mess. They could have leveraged their products better by doing what Apple does.
[…] Continue reading here: I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Nexus None – Cringely on technology […]
Robert you failed to pat yourself on the back here. Back on 28 October 2008 in you PBS column you predicted all this: “If I had to bet right this moment on the mobile 85-10-5 of 2011 I’d say iPhone, Android, then RIM, Symbian, or something completely new from behind Door Number Three.” So the “No, duh” comment elsewhere is unfair.
I agree the smart phone will take over for most everyone, except for those of us that just use the phone to call people. The thing I find most interesting is the tablets. Everyone keeps trying to sell a $500 to $1000 dollar tablet. These won’t go anywhere. The real future is the cheap tablet at $200. Face at this price point, it would be sufficient computer for almost everyone; video, photos, documents, email, and surfing the web. The problem is that Intel/Microsoft do not want this. It would signal an end to their profit machine. It seems this would be the perfect opportunity for a new company to exploit this. The real future is the commodity computer. Visit the Freescale both at Comdex.
[NZ time, a day late and a few $T short]
I love it. My money’s still on you, Bob.
And then? How about: Google & Co’s Go comes of age, dev’rs flock, Android is King and the big G rides off into the sunset while we monitor our ice-makers from our deck chairs. Bill weaps.
Just until he re-incarnates.
Just because 2.5 desktop operating systems survived doesn’t mean that history will repeat itself with smartphones. It just means 2.5 companies knew what they were doing. But I do agree there is consolidation and attrition is about to happen.
Palm has a modern mobile OS and needs cash. Microsoft needs a modern OS and has cash. But will Microsoft (i.e., Steve Balmer) swallow its pride and make a deal? I doubt it. We’re in the middle of mobile computing being the “next big thing” and Microsoft is about to miss it, after having a FIVE YEAR head start over RIM and Apple.
A few weeks ago a Microsoft Mobile executive said, “When Apple came on to the scene a couple of years ago, it threw away the rulebook and reinvented it. We unfortunately don’t have that luxury.” Is he serious? What he’s saying is that once Apple reinvents something, that’s how it should be and that nobody can “reinvent” it again. Apple is very good, but not perfect. I can’t believe Microsoft doesn’t have the money, talent, time, and willpower to “reinvent” mobile computing with its own vision of how it should be. But of course, when was the last time Micosoft did that with anything?
“I can’t believe Microsoft doesn’t have the money, talent, time, and willpower to “reinvent” mobile computing with its own vision of how it should be.”
Allow me to assist you on this point. Microsoft DEFINITELY DOES have those qualities. In spades. The reason they fail is because they don’t USE their talent effectively. Everything has to be top down. Unless an idea comes from a VP, it never sees the light of day. The development ranks have tons of good ideas and the talent to implement. But they are forced to work long hours on poorly planned and poorly designed garbage.
Yes. I know this for a fact.
[…] Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) are smartphone winners, who are the losers? (I, Cringley, Above the Crowd, Infectious Greed, MarketBeat, Brainstorm Tech, […]
Bob,
im glad you are doing your new year predictions.
I look forward to it every year, whether you are right or wrong, your reasoning is always enjoyable and facinating. Don’t stop.
Dave
I can’t see any of the smart phones getting widespread usage until the carriers get the monthly costs of owning a phone down… right now they nickle and dime us for each “service”. The last “special” I was offered was over $1200 per year for a phone! Even in the bad old days of Ma Bell and POTS it didn’t cost THAT much…
The problem here is not the OS or Google vs Apple vs Palm vs MS … it’s the carriers.
Dvorak has an interesting take on MSFT and smartphones –
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357629,00.asp
[…] jacked Palm share prices up by 10%, confident things will turnaround for the beleaguered company. Cringely thinks Microsoft may actually make a play and buy the company, just to keep its hand in mobile […]
Bob what you forgot to say in your post is the reason there will be only three viable platforms. Developers will only develop applications for maybe three platforms.
I read the Nexus One reviews and fail to seeing it making much of a dent in Iphone sales. Having said that I can’t help but think that three major players in this market will probably be too many. Smart phones have largely become social tools, and status symbols. I think the war will be one on that level. Much like the early video game wars between Nintendo entertainment system and the Sega Master system of the 80’s. The master system was a far better machine with far better capabilities but in the end people bought what there friends had so they could have a shared experience and swap games etc. etc. What ever apps my friends have that I like will likely determine what I’m buying. At the end of the day any cell can text and talk, but the one I can review, share and complain about to all my friends who have the same phone will likely win. I predict Apple will walk away with a comfortable major market share and Android/Google will slowly kill the other players…yes sorry RIm (the only viable third alternative really, BTW any fun apps for the crackberry…Hmm not that I can think of) Microsoft is losing enough on Zune, and Xbox it doesnt need any more help. Apple has Itunes, Apps, Podcasts its firmly entrenched itself in the lives of everyone I know and we’ve had few things to conplain about.
FB
[…] point. Consumers are finally benefiting from having more choices. We’re starting to see the losers of this new market place exposed, from RIM to carriers, now suffering from their complacency […]
[…] “Nexus None” — Bob heralds the end of feature phones. […]
Palm shares have taken a beating, but it looks good for a rebound.
“Yet many of the stories I’ve read today have presented this product introduction as a seminal break between Apple and Google with one trying to kill the other. Not even close.”
And then Apple sues HTC? Is this about Android or WinMo? The Mac zealot blogs are alight with indignation and self-righteous snobbery that could have been written by Steve Ballmer or Jim Allchin. What is Apple after, Bob?
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