3 ms·

If we agree that eventually (within 15 years or so) all phones will be smartphones and that almost everyone on earth older than 10 will own one, you can see why

If we agree that eventually (within 15 years or so) all phones will be smartphones and that almost everyone on earth older than 10 will own one, you can see why I'm still bullish on RIM and MS. A relatively small number of companies (Apple, Google, RIM, MS) are fighting over a huge market which will grow from millions today to hundreds of millions to billions in time. Managing to capture or hold onto even 10% of that market will pay off handsomely.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Be careful not to fall into the same fallacious reasoning as plagued the original dot-com boom (and was partly responsible for the bust). No amount of marketshare comes for free. Whether it's 10%, 1%, or even 0.0001% of any market that business has to be earned.
bradleyland 15y ago
But if we learned anything from the desktop wars, we learned that one company can very realistically come to dominate large portions of the market. The opportunity for a monopoly definitely exists. Not that I want it, but it's eminently possible.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
The problem with that thinking is that this has become a war of ecosystems from a battle of devices (to paraphrase Nokia's CEO). Only a few platforms can hold developer attention and if you're a 10% player in 2015, the developers might not care enough to make a version of an app for you. If the ecosystem is not there, the users aren't, too. The desktop market exploded in the 90s, but where were the incumbents in the mid 80s like Amiga? This lead to Palm/HP's exit from the mobile business inspite of having a nice product, the lack of ecosystem is quite damaging. This is the reason RIM is in trouble too. MS has a better shot with their developer tools, developer relations and perseverance(see XBox). Not to mention Android licensing fees and the Windows/Office/Server cashcows. They were able to get developers to write ~30,000 apps in less than a year for a nascent platform with zero users one year ago. Nokia wasn't going anywhere with Symbian, wanted to get Meego going, but it wasn't ready fast enough on enough phones and wasn't confident on seeding yet another new ecosystem, so they took the drastic decision of ditching it and aligning with the WP ecosystem. RIM is a one trick pony with nowhere to go, and the attempt to come out of the decline with the Playbook seems to have gone badly wrong. BBM works for only so long as a lock-in mechanism.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  In the first phase of modern smartphones the core applications were enough of a selling point: mail, browser, and maps. Now there are plenty of low-cost phones which do all 3 of those well enough they aren't a differentiator, so the decision point has switched to games, apps, and other features which has put more emphasis on the ecosystem.
shaggyfrog 15y ago
> Managing to capture or hold onto even 10% of that market will pay off handsomely. I can't remember who said it, but it goes something like this: whenever someone tells me that all they need is 1% of some big market, I wonder if they realize that there exists a number smaller than 1%. In other words, considering how MS (and RIM for that matter) have squandered their significant market share over the last decade or so, what evidence exists that you think they're going to turn it completely around? Coming at this from another angle, consider that even having large market share does not equate to profits; just look at Nokia. So how will either survive with small market share? Especially if their margins aren't iPhone-esque?

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Be careful not to fall into the same fallacious reasoning as plagued the original dot-com boom (and was partly responsible for the bust). No amount of marketshare comes for free. Whether it's 10%, 1%, or even 0.0001% of any market that business has to be earned.

bradleyland 15y ago

But if we learned anything from the desktop wars, we learned that one company can very realistically come to dominate large portions of the market. The opportunity for a monopoly definitely exists. Not that I want it, but it's eminently possible.

recoiledsnake 15y ago

The problem with that thinking is that this has become a war of ecosystems from a battle of devices (to paraphrase Nokia's CEO). Only a few platforms can hold developer attention and if you're a 10% player in 2015, the developers might not care enough to make a version of an app for you. If the ecosystem is not there, the users aren't, too. The desktop market exploded in the 90s, but where were the incumbents in the mid 80s like Amiga? This lead to Palm/HP's exit from the mobile business inspite of having a nice product, the lack of ecosystem is quite damaging. This is the reason RIM is in trouble too. MS has a better shot with their developer tools, developer relations and perseverance(see XBox). Not to mention Android licensing fees and the Windows/Office/Server cashcows. They were able to get developers to write ~30,000 apps in less than a year for a nascent platform with zero users one year ago. Nokia wasn't going anywhere with Symbian, wanted to get Meego going, but it wasn't ready fast enough on enough phones and wasn't confident on seeding yet another new ecosystem, so they took the drastic decision of ditching it and aligning with the WP ecosystem. RIM is a one trick pony with nowhere to go, and the attempt to come out of the decline with the Playbook seems to have gone badly wrong. BBM works for only so long as a lock-in mechanism.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
In the first phase of modern smartphones the core applications were enough of a selling point: mail, browser, and maps. Now there are plenty of low-cost phones which do all 3 of those well enough they aren't a differentiator, so the decision point has switched to games, apps, and other features which has put more emphasis on the ecosystem.

shaggyfrog 15y ago

> Managing to capture or hold onto even 10% of that market will pay off handsomely. I can't remember who said it, but it goes something like this: whenever someone tells me that all they need is 1% of some big market, I wonder if they realize that there exists a number smaller than 1%. In other words, considering how MS (and RIM for that matter) have squandered their significant market share over the last decade or so, what evidence exists that you think they're going to turn it completely around? Coming at this from another angle, consider that even having large market share does not equate to profits; just look at Nokia. So how will either survive with small market share? Especially if their margins aren't iPhone-esque?