Apple pulling a “Microsoft”
Let’s face it … nobody buys a Windows machine for it’s stellar functionality or beautiful interface. They buy it for the ecosystem (software) around it, and the fact that Microsoft dominates the desktop domain. While Apple may have lost out on the desktop to Microsoft, they didn’t ignore the lessons to be learned.
With today’s announcement of the new iPhone 3GS and the reduction of the iPhone 3G to $99 (effective immediately). Let me explain why the Palm Pre has a sisyphean task:
- 1,000,000 SDKs downloaded
- 50,000 applications
- 40M iPhones/iPod Touches
That is the iPhone/iPod ecosystem. That leaves out the thousands and thousands of accessories that are “Made for iPhone”. It’s a gigantic impediment to adoption, and more importantly a huge risk to consider for any developer. You don’t unseat the “best” while being only incrementally better. You have to change the game.
This entry was posted at 2:39 pm on 8 June 2009 and is filed under Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
Interesting comment about that numbers game over at wmexperts: They don’t count the thousands of “Palm Classic” apps that run on the Pre, and they don’t count Windows Mobile at all. Admitted, there is no one central store for all of WM at the moment, but that’s due to the relative openness of the platform – you’re not dependent on just one ecosystem or distribution point.
http://www.wmexperts.com/lies-damn-lies-statistics-and-apple
Doug, happy with his ATT Blackjack II
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Who says they need to be “the best”? I bet there’s an equilbrium, a smaller market than the iPhone’s that can still be comfortably profitable, especially with the iPhone’s reliance on AT&T. Many people are reluctant to make the move to a new carrier.