Yep, Amazon Launching Their Own App Store For Android Too.
No surprises here. Amazon, a retailer, is building a retail experience for apps. They are taking Android and throwing away Google’s app store and a few other things as well and making their own tablet while at it.
Maybe they’ll put Bing on it and Facebook too.
I’m willing to bet that Google pays between $5 to $10 per iPhone for the privilege of default search. I think that’s where Schmidt got the figure for what Android is worth. It also makes sense given the rumor that surfaced that Google paid $100 million for the default search placement in the first round.
Via Appleinsider: Google extends deal with Apple to remain default iPhone search.
TenYears.jpg. credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/x1brett/
The one on the right also includes a battery and cellular radios. Some still argue that the PC will never be replaced.
The operator instinct for consumer hostility knows no national boundaries.
Here is a table with no less than 100 numbers to ponder when deciding on an iPhone plan:
Consider what RIM had to overcome to even be: It was an outsider entering the mobile phone business at a time when incumbent market power was far more concentrated. It evolved from data-only pagers awkwardly adapted to carry voice without pandering to the fashion consciousness of its contemporaries obsessed as they were with the RAZR. Its foothold market was the most difficult market to enter, the US; and within it, in most difficult sector–business users.
RIM’s solution has no architectural elegance and their non-standard approach to email using their own servers and protocols defied all IT policies regarding security and the entrenched use of Exchange. Even after Microsoft offered a cleaner solution (Exchange push) that avoided the RIM back end, businesses otherwise committed to Microsoft stuck with RIM for mobile email. In spite of various government opposition, RIM continues to grow internationally.
Even its acceptance may be an accident of history.
The absence of interoperable SMS in the US early last decade meant that there was no reliable way to send text from one mobile to another across CDMA and GSM networks. The Blackberry was hired to to the same job that SMS was hired to do anywhere else, but by the time SMS was working in the US, the use of Blackberry increased irrespectively.
It should be no wonder then that the company can be considered both disruptive and a dead end. Analysts have been split about it from day one. Gartner advised against adoption by any self-respecting IT shop.
Equities analysts are still split into bulls and bears more evenly than any other company in this space. See: RIMM: Street Split Sharply On The Stock; Avian Cuts Rating (Updated) – Tech Trader Daily – Barrons.com
The arguments are pretty straight forward:
vs.
The market has largely voted with the bears as the price shows absurdly low valuation (4.3x EV/EBITDA) but the company continues to show growth quarter after quarter.
My own point of view has been for some time that RIM’s disruptive days are over because the engineer in me says that their code base is a dead end. But the disruptive analyst in me leads me to be hesitant in proclaiming their imminent demise. The fact remains that their product is good enough for a subset of the users who want nothing more than a messaging phone. I will add however that this subsets unlikely to grow especially relative to the number of users who will opt for more highly functional devices.
So the riddle of RIM remains: rumors of its death has been exaggerated but it’s not an unforeseeable growth story anymore. As a result the company is in limbo.
The CEO of Best Buy just said the iPad is cannibalizing 50% of the company’s laptop sales, the Wall Street Journal reports.
When consumers walk into Best Buy now, they don’t look at or want laptops, instead they’re drawn to the iPad.
“People are willing to disproportionately spend for these devices because they are becoming so important to their lives,” says CEO Brian Dun.
via Best Buy CEO: iPad Is Cannibalizing Laptop Sales By A Shocking 50%.
It’s proceeding as expected, but much, much more quickly.
My first reaction in January: asymco | First Thoughts on the iPad
A further thought in May: asymco | Will Apple rule the iPad market? (part II)
In my talks with about 100 senior-level people at as many companies over the past six months, the feeling is that the tablet is here to stay and it’s going to be bigger than everyone expected it to be. It’s an always-on, always-with-you data experience. The other thing is that we spend about $1,500 for a laptop and another $300 per year over five years for the Microsoft Office suite. That same capability on an iPad is $600 to $800, and the software is $10 per application forever. It’s about one-third or one-fourth the price. The cost of ownership is inexpensive–and that’s just the first generation before they drop prices.
via Rise Of The Tablet Computer Page 3 of 3 – Forbes.com.
How fast is it catching on?
In the C-suite and the executive suite there is mass adoption. In Bank of America it took 60 days to hit the corporate standards list, which is the fastest any technology has hit that list. We’ve already bought 1,000 of these and we hadn’t bought anything from Apple in more than a decade. Executives everywhere are carrying iPads. And like we saw with the BlackBerry, once the head goes the body follows. The top executives get them and then they order them for the next 10 or 20 people.
The iPad use in corporate settings is even more disruptive than the Blackberry. No contract to sign, no administration overhead for voice and data plans. Trivial setup and instant gratification.
The way iPad is knocking down IT barriers to entry makes one wonder if Apple did not engineer it for this. But when you look at the product and positioning corporate use is that last thing you think of. This is often the case with disruptive products.
Lost of other great quotes in the article. For example: the iPad can be passed around a table but a laptop can’t.
Having been literally inundated by one request, here is my Twitter page:
Horace Dediu (asymco) on Twitter.
Let the following begin.
Now available for liking: Facebook | asymco has a shorter URL: www.facebook.com/asymco
I might post some material there that is not worthy of a blog post.
Gartner in 2006 predicting mobile OS future.
“Interest in Windows Mobile 5.0 has grown steadily, and it now attracts far more developers than any rival mobile operating system. This should improve the likelihood of IT directors being able to buy line-of-business mobile applications for the Microsoft platform. More than 10,000 developers are currently working on applications for Windows Mobile 5.0. Part of the reason for this developer momentum is Microsoft’s programming model. Nick Jones, vice-president at analyst firm Gartner, said, “Every device using Windows Mobile 5.0 has the same interfaces, but that is absolutely not the case with other operating systems, such as Symbian.”
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via Gartner Says WM Can Empower Your Developers.
A piece by Gartner that has a typical Gartner conclusion: WM 5 is going to grow the WM Developer community because of device-by-device similarities, and more freedom than RIM or Nokia devices can give.
Love the “every device using Windows Mobile 5.0 has the same interfaces” dig at Symbian. That was four years ago. This week Gartner predicts the fragmented but magically open Android will dominate four years from now.
