Mobile Computing Industry
Elevation Partners Squeezes Tiny Profit From Palm Investment – Deal Journal –WSJ.
According to HTC CFO Cheng Hui-ming, the company is giving serious thought to developing its own mobile operating system
“Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, Device Data may not be provided or disclosed to a third party without Apple’s prior written consent. Accordingly, the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited.”
via Is Apple Closing Off the iPhone to Rival Ad Networks? | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD.
Not to worry, Eric. Android revenues will make up for AdMob’s price tag.
“We believe that user experience complexity will grow and weigh in favor of those companies that can control and deliver superior integration through vertical integration of software and hardware,”
link: RIMM, Nokia tops in ‘year of the mobile computer’ The Ratings Game – MarketWatch
I’ve been banging on about this for some time. The analyst continues:
“We expect this unstable period to last for another 2-3 years before expected user experience stabilizes and a more horizontal industry emerges,” he wrote.
In this type of market, Hall says, Google’s Android has a greater advantage in a horizontal market than a vertical one.
“We would caution investors against prematurely declaring Android as the winner as we expect the mobile computer OS platform market to be hotly contested over the next 2-3 years,” Hall wrote.
I would argue it will take even longer than 3 years for horizontal (or, as I call it, modular) architectures to become competitive.
The evolution of user interfaces is now so rapid that modes of interaction become obsolete before value chains have time to evolve.
The iPod continues unchallenged long after it over-served because standalone music players are no longer an attractive market to challengers, especially in light of the continued integration with a music service (iTunes).
Palm CEO “I’ve never used an iPhone” Rubinstein quoted in the earnings conference call:
“We had an arrangement with Sprint that when we launched with Sprint that they would invest in marketing and carry the product and for that they would get an exclusive for a period of time. That really determined when we could do our launch at Verizon. I agree with your premise that if we could have launched at Verizon earlier, prior to Droid, that we would have gotten the attention that the Droid got and since I believe that we have a better product, I think we would have even done better.”
So we are led to believe Droid launched into a window in Verizon’s launch schedule. A window which was shut to Palm due to their exclusive with Sprint. It’s a matter of timing.
Then again, Droid got $100 million in advertising and marketing budget from Verizon and Motorola. It’s unlikely that Palm could leverage that kind of muscle, and their product ended up being positioned on a female demographic.
Palm was either late or under-funded or mis-positioned or all of the above.
Essentially, Palm’s problem is not the quality of the product (which is arguable) but their ability to market and distribute in a highly competitive market. In other words, it’s not that they’re not smart enough, but that they’re not strong enough.
Sadly, it’s not enough to be smart or good. They’re in the wrong market if they think having a clever product is a winning strategy. Mobile Computing is the toughest technology market today. Because the stakes are so huge, it’s a market that is targeted by enormous resources. This is no place for start-ups.
Palm is simply too weak to make it.
Tim Bray Throws His Hat Into The Android Ring Because He Hates The iPhone
Sorry Tim, get used to it. Your idea that software writers should have the right to put their software on anybody’s hardware is coming to an end. That is a privilege not a right.
No vendor has the right to put their product on the shelf of any retailer in the world. It takes a lot of hard work and no small amount of luck to have your product distributed. The software world will be no different.
I vehemently disagree with this premise:
Nokia did not take advantage of any of the opportunities that it had by being in first place. It failed to leverage its partnerships with carriers, manufacturers, software developers, and content companies.
link: The Below Average CEO: Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo Of Nokia (NOK) – 24/7 Wall St.
When disrupted, large incumbents invariably fail to respond adequately to the threat.
You can only blame management if the threat is symmetric and they fail to take up the challenge. This failure almost never happens.
Asymmetric competition is intractable in almost all instances. This failure always happens. A response in kind by management is usually worthy of dismissal “for cause”.
[Donna Dubinsky] called the decision to spin off PalmOS a “huge strategic error.” “As RIM, Apple and Palm all have demonstrated, these devices need to be highly integrated hardware and software developments in order to optimize the user experience,” Dubinsky wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “When Palm no longer could advance the OS, and had to create a new one, it lost several years.”
Donna gets it.
link: Palm Inc. teeters in crowded smart phone market – Yahoo! Finance
[Rob Glaser] said with those “super” abilities, mobile has a great potential, but if Apple gets its way, the wireless industry could end up like the MP3 industry. The other option is for things to go the way of the PC, which he considers more horizontal.
“As of today, Apple is the clear winner. It’s incredible what they’ve been able to do in a vertical paradigm,”
link: Former RealNetwork’s CEO Rob Glaser Says For Now Apple Has Won – Yahoo! Finance
Sorry Rob, you’re still missing the whole point. It’s not incredible, it’s the only way to go. What’s incredible is that anybody tried to do it differently.
Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.
link: Apple talks tough to handset makers – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Brainstorm Tech
Top-tier handset makers continued to avoid implementing multi-touch, but Apple could safely assume that they were hanging back to gauge Apple’s response to Motorola and HTC. If there wasn’t one, the OEMs would likely read the silence as a green light, especially after Google also moved to enable multi-touch on its Nexus One phone.
Even before the lawsuit, handset makers were having second thoughts about Google, which with the Nexus One had become a direct competitor. Now their faith in Android as the easiest and cheapest way to counter the iPhone has been shaken, says Reiner.
Seems pretty close to what I wrote here:
Therefore it’s entirely likely that HTC was singled out to disrupt the business logic of modular mobile software. HTC is the pioneer and the hub as the largest licensee for both WinMo/WinP and Android and the inspiration for hundreds of OEM/ODMs to make modular products.
… Other vendors looking at this licensing model might think harder about participating, and that may be the whole point.
AppleInsider | Microsoft Pink-Zune details emerge alongside Windows Phone 7
Dilger in fine form today ripping Microsoft a new one.
The collapse of its Windows Mobile Marketplace has now caused Microsoft to radically reword its mobile app strategy going forward in such a way as to vilify the entire concept of apps. At the launch of Windows Phone 7, the company presented a video that portrayed the iPhone’s ability to run mobile apps as a confusing world with too many doors to choose from, each leading to rooms with starkly white walls, an experience that frustrated and puzzled a professionally dressed woman.
It really isn’t sporting anymore to pick on Microsoft in mobile. Ridicule turns to pity.
