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> I think you might be missing the point. I got his point, I just think he's wrong. He says Google shifting from trying to compete from Blackberry/Microsoft t

> I think you might be missing the point. I got his point, I just think he's wrong. He says Google shifting from trying to compete from Blackberry/Microsoft to competing with Apple was basically an act of war, so Apple is justified in fighting back in the ad market. I think that's wrong for three reasons - first, Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't. Second, it wasn't an act of war/betrayal/attack/breach of the Apple/Google business relationship (which Gruber implies). Third, Apple are kind of being pricks pulling the rug out from a company after Google acquires them. They can do that because it's their business, but it's not justified as some sort of retaliatory measure. It is justified as business if they want, it's kind of prick-ish, but it's their right to do. So, I understood, I just thought some of his points were wrong. I agree with him about not having comments on his site though - except in rare instances with a carefully built commenting community, comments become just noise and take away from a site. I like Gruber and have learned some really good stuff from him. I'm just not with him on this one.

gaius 16y ago
That's kinda sorta not true tho' - BlackBerries account for 40% of the smartphone market. If you were going after the biggest slice of the pie, they're who you'd target.
- telemachos 16y ago
  I always end up wondering how can a company have so much of the market and so little of the buzz? (Of course, if you can maintain that level of market share, it may not matter.)
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    They sell to corporations. Citigroup and similar companies give their employees blackberries and generic dell laptops. Their employees are sufficiently un-excited about it that there is no buzz.
    - edster 16y ago
      hmmm, for some reason I can't reply directly to @gaius' comment. I find the I love my BB argument interesting. While he's right, I don't understand the attraction for these people. I've been doing some BB development lately using a Storm II. Compared to the iPhone 3GS, it's a flying turd. I wonder if these BlackBerry lovers just haven't tried an iPhone or Android device. Maybe I would think differently if I was testing on a keyboard device like a Bold, but I can't imagine it would change my opinion that much.
      - gaius 16y ago
        It takes a few minutes after a comment is posted for replies to be enabled.
      - WiseWeasel 16y ago
        A good portion of them are women with long nails, who can't use capacitive touchscreens very effectively, especially for typing.
      - lallysingh 16y ago
        The BB's UI is garbage, but the iPhone really misses a big point on missing a real keyboard.
    - gaius 16y ago
      I don't think that's true. People say "I love my BlackBerry". Regardless of where they got it, they form the emotional attachment to the brand. Jay-Z mentions his BlackBerry in his music. It's a lifestyle object, it says, I am taking care of business, baby. I am an insider, I have my act together, I make decisions. People call them CrackBerries because they're addictive. But I've never heard anyone say "I love my Android", people talk about how clever it is, but the brand doesn't seem to resonate nearly as much, and it's not as clear what it says as a lifestyle accessory.
      - telemachos 16y ago
        First, I love my Eris. Love it, love it, love it. Would sleep with it under the pillow, if I weren't so worried about its well-being. Second, in my experience, people react to it with a "So you're a DIY-er, huh?" That is, people are aware, however vaguely, of the opensource/hacker vibe that the brand carries. I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "what it says as a lifestyle accesory," but I think it is. (Btw, you had your +1 at "Jay-Z mentions...")
- elpuri 16y ago
  RIM's market share in 2010/Q1 according to Gartner (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-down-windows-mobile-in-latest-gartner-data/3829 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-...) was 19,4% and year before that it was a little bit over 20%.
- mseebach 16y ago
  It's said that the next Nexus (Two?) is going to target business users and have a full hardware keyboard. To really eat BlackBerrys pie, they'd need tight Exchange integration, and I'm not sure how Google plan on doing that. BlackBerry requires you to operate an expensive BlackBerry server on your network, that's not exactly Google's MO.
tel 16y ago
Eating someone else's food is an act of war when you're both starving and most companies always seem to be starving. Expecting your one agreement with a person to remain constant despite antagonizing them is foolish. And yeah, Apple is going for the low blows, but they're actually the much smaller company here still right? Despite the market cap and everything. Android was Google seeing a rich opportunity to take uncertain ground from Apple and now it's a dance to find a stable boundary line. One smart, if risky, way to get another couple moves to extend that line is to attack them somewhere else. Even Google has limited attention. Best, for Apple, is that this attack strengthens their smartphone position. It sounds really clever to me.
- chc 16y ago
  No, Apple is not the smaller company here. There is no reasonable measure by which you could say Google, a company with one monetarily successful product and a smaller market cap, is bigger than Apple, the dominant consumer technology company of our age. EDIT: I don't normally respond to downvotes, but I find it odd that at least three people have disagreed without anyone explaining how this very factual comment is wrong. If there's something factually or logically wrong in my comment, we would all be better off if you'd explain the truth rather than (or as well as) downvote.
  - WiseWeasel 16y ago
    I didn't up or down-vote your comment, so I can't speak for those that did, but I'll just point out that market influence is likely a bigger competitive factor than resources at one's disposal or market cap. The market cap difference between Google and Apple are not all that relevant to the amount of money they choose to invest in development, acquisitions or marketing, the aspects that influence their ultimate ability to compete given the will to enter a market. Market influence, however, is a hugely different story. Google owns 90%+ of the web search market, comparable to Microsoft's daunting lead in the commodity PC OS or office productivity software markets. Google's search business is the core of Google's profitability, bringing in the lion's share of their revenue. Let's compare to Apple, who doesn't have a majority share in any competitive market besides portable music players and digital music distribution. The actual share of revenues from these businesses is a small and shrinking fraction of Apple's income. The portable music player business is collapsing in the face of evolving consumer smart phones and mobile internet devices like the iPod Touch, and the digital music distribution is an insignificant part of Apple's revenue. All the areas in which Apple is making all their profits are either nascent markets like consumer tablets and mobile internet devices, or Apple is a relatively small player. To imply that Apple can use their position in these markets it doesn't dominate to unfairly move into other established markets needs a bit more supportive evidence than that.
stcredzero 16y ago
Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't. There's a lot of people out there who love physical keyboards and who must type with their thumbs!
- cheald 16y ago
  The Droid has a physical keyboard. The platform can support both physical and software keyboards quite easily.

gaius 16y ago

That's kinda sorta not true tho' - BlackBerries account for 40% of the smartphone market. If you were going after the biggest slice of the pie, they're who you'd target.

telemachos 16y ago
I always end up wondering how can a company have so much of the market and so little of the buzz? (Of course, if you can maintain that level of market share, it may not matter.)
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  They sell to corporations. Citigroup and similar companies give their employees blackberries and generic dell laptops. Their employees are sufficiently un-excited about it that there is no buzz.
  - edster 16y ago
    hmmm, for some reason I can't reply directly to @gaius' comment. I find the I love my BB argument interesting. While he's right, I don't understand the attraction for these people. I've been doing some BB development lately using a Storm II. Compared to the iPhone 3GS, it's a flying turd. I wonder if these BlackBerry lovers just haven't tried an iPhone or Android device. Maybe I would think differently if I was testing on a keyboard device like a Bold, but I can't imagine it would change my opinion that much.
    - gaius 16y ago
      It takes a few minutes after a comment is posted for replies to be enabled.
    - WiseWeasel 16y ago
      A good portion of them are women with long nails, who can't use capacitive touchscreens very effectively, especially for typing.
    - lallysingh 16y ago
      The BB's UI is garbage, but the iPhone really misses a big point on missing a real keyboard.
  - gaius 16y ago
    I don't think that's true. People say "I love my BlackBerry". Regardless of where they got it, they form the emotional attachment to the brand. Jay-Z mentions his BlackBerry in his music. It's a lifestyle object, it says, I am taking care of business, baby. I am an insider, I have my act together, I make decisions. People call them CrackBerries because they're addictive. But I've never heard anyone say "I love my Android", people talk about how clever it is, but the brand doesn't seem to resonate nearly as much, and it's not as clear what it says as a lifestyle accessory.
    - telemachos 16y ago
      First, I love my Eris. Love it, love it, love it. Would sleep with it under the pillow, if I weren't so worried about its well-being. Second, in my experience, people react to it with a "So you're a DIY-er, huh?" That is, people are aware, however vaguely, of the opensource/hacker vibe that the brand carries. I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "what it says as a lifestyle accesory," but I think it is. (Btw, you had your +1 at "Jay-Z mentions...")
elpuri 16y ago
RIM's market share in 2010/Q1 according to Gartner (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-down-windows-mobile-in-latest-gartner-data/3829 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-...) was 19,4% and year before that it was a little bit over 20%.
mseebach 16y ago
It's said that the next Nexus (Two?) is going to target business users and have a full hardware keyboard. To really eat BlackBerrys pie, they'd need tight Exchange integration, and I'm not sure how Google plan on doing that. BlackBerry requires you to operate an expensive BlackBerry server on your network, that's not exactly Google's MO.

tel 16y ago

Eating someone else's food is an act of war when you're both starving and most companies always seem to be starving. Expecting your one agreement with a person to remain constant despite antagonizing them is foolish. And yeah, Apple is going for the low blows, but they're actually the much smaller company here still right? Despite the market cap and everything. Android was Google seeing a rich opportunity to take uncertain ground from Apple and now it's a dance to find a stable boundary line. One smart, if risky, way to get another couple moves to extend that line is to attack them somewhere else. Even Google has limited attention. Best, for Apple, is that this attack strengthens their smartphone position. It sounds really clever to me.

chc 16y ago
No, Apple is not the smaller company here. There is no reasonable measure by which you could say Google, a company with one monetarily successful product and a smaller market cap, is bigger than Apple, the dominant consumer technology company of our age. EDIT: I don't normally respond to downvotes, but I find it odd that at least three people have disagreed without anyone explaining how this very factual comment is wrong. If there's something factually or logically wrong in my comment, we would all be better off if you'd explain the truth rather than (or as well as) downvote.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  I didn't up or down-vote your comment, so I can't speak for those that did, but I'll just point out that market influence is likely a bigger competitive factor than resources at one's disposal or market cap. The market cap difference between Google and Apple are not all that relevant to the amount of money they choose to invest in development, acquisitions or marketing, the aspects that influence their ultimate ability to compete given the will to enter a market. Market influence, however, is a hugely different story. Google owns 90%+ of the web search market, comparable to Microsoft's daunting lead in the commodity PC OS or office productivity software markets. Google's search business is the core of Google's profitability, bringing in the lion's share of their revenue. Let's compare to Apple, who doesn't have a majority share in any competitive market besides portable music players and digital music distribution. The actual share of revenues from these businesses is a small and shrinking fraction of Apple's income. The portable music player business is collapsing in the face of evolving consumer smart phones and mobile internet devices like the iPod Touch, and the digital music distribution is an insignificant part of Apple's revenue. All the areas in which Apple is making all their profits are either nascent markets like consumer tablets and mobile internet devices, or Apple is a relatively small player. To imply that Apple can use their position in these markets it doesn't dominate to unfairly move into other established markets needs a bit more supportive evidence than that.

stcredzero 16y ago

Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't. There's a lot of people out there who love physical keyboards and who must type with their thumbs!

cheald 16y ago
The Droid has a physical keyboard. The platform can support both physical and software keyboards quite easily.