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I think the outcome of the first generation of smartphone OS's has (surprisingly for me at least) shown that there's really only room for a handful of players (
by ethbro 10y ago
I think the outcome of the first generation of smartphone OS's has (surprisingly for me at least) shown that there's really only room for a handful of players (Android/AChina, iOS) with sufficient numbers of users to be self-sustaining.
As you note, not sure a unipolar outcome would ever be stable enough to have persisted, but I wouldn't have expected a bipolar arrangement either. And I can imagine a market structure that would have depressed manufacturer profits far enough so as to preclude serious R&D / innovation on their parts.
- kbenson 10y agoYou know, it's common enough to have one dominant player in a marker, a small few chasing players, and then a bunch of very niche players that I'm there's a lot of economic theory behind it that I'm unaware of. It probably relies quite a bit on how invested in the product you are once you've decided on it, but there are plenty of examples throughout history[1], 1: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/Smartphone_Market_Share_2007_Through_2011.png http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/Smartphone_Market_Share_2...
- AnonymousPlanet 10y agoLet's keep this in mind the next time we get the idea to let market forces regulate, say, school systems or infrastructure.