4 ms·

I think there's a lesson here in comparing apple ipod to iphone strategy. How come no one managed to beat apple's ipod and samsung beat the iphone. I have a co

by bsaul 13y ago

I think there's a lesson here in comparing apple ipod to iphone strategy. How come no one managed to beat apple's ipod and samsung beat the iphone. I have a couple of ideas (price tag on the iphone was too high, market size is bigger and attracts more competitors, technology is more difficult because it deals with both hardware and software, etc), but no definitive answer. That's something that will be discussed in business schools for a long time.

RyanZAG 13y ago
If you compare the markets exactly then the real differentiator is simply that Google open-sourced Android into the phone business, but not into the music player business. I'm not sure if 'Google did it' is the real answer to your question or not, but it's interesting to note that competing on level ground with open source is extremely difficult - especially when that open source is backed by very heavy funding.
randallu 13y ago
There was nothing like Android for music players. Samsung is not a software platform company in any way.
- bsaul 13y ago
  Samsung is definitely a software plaform company. It had Bada that it used in its Wave product line (which surely accounts for a small percentage of their profit) and it will soon have Tizen. Android is definitely one reason, and one could say that samsung AND google won against Apple. That what i meant when i said the business is much more complicated as it requires to be excellent and competitive both in hardware and software.
  - randallu 13y ago
    Bada is dead, Tizen looks likely to be DOA. By software platform company I meant a company that can sustain software platforms. It's really easy to ship a new platform every year; no third parties want that though. I agree with your point that Samsung really upped the ante on Android hardware. The GS1 and GS2 were a tipping point on Android hardware performance and quality -- now that Qualcomm is making high performance parts and everyone is doing competitive product design Samsung are less necessary to Android (but still dominating).
- rsynnott 13y ago
  Microsoft PlaysForSure was a (failed) attempt, though it was later killed off in favour of the (also-failed) Zune.
  - randallu 13y ago
    I worked on one of the biggest selling music players that used PlaysForSure, and every other piece of hardware was junk taking seconds to start playing DRM'd tracks, etc. Janus/PlaysForSure was just a library that vendors like Creative/etc dumped into the low perf, crappy design "music player reference code" they got from the SoC vendor and hacked up on. The media player guys didn't own their technology in any meaningful way. Zune could have been amazing! They had a nice big screen, a hardware accelerated UI with rich transitions. They were lightyears ahead of Apple/iPod on technology. Obviously they completely bombed in the market, but imagine if they had found success because of their better technology -- it would have been really hard for Apple to respond since the iPod OS was such a low level affair (plus Apple never would have made a brown iPod!).
kenjackson 13y ago
Mobile operators. Android was early on able to get a toe in the door by targeting carriers that didn't have the iPhone. That gave Android critical mass. No such opening existed in the mp3 market.
kryptiskt 13y ago
Apple extracts far more profit from an iPhone than they ever did with an iPod, leaving them vulnerable for an attack from the bottom of the market (Samsung churned out low-end models before they took on Apple straight on with Galaxy S). And there are another group of players in the phone market, the operators, the more you push them around the more interest they have in establishing alternatives to your products.
adventured 13y ago
The smart phone market is radically larger than the mp3 player market, and it cycles every 24 to 36 months in terms of customers turning over their hardware. I know several iPod owners that have had their hardware for six or seven years; my brother has a bulky white spinning drive version from eight or nine years ago that still works great. There's a big issue with everybody not wanting to own the same phones. In mp3 players there were not very many decent alternatives. In smart phones there are at least five or six good phones available at any given time (and if you're in China, as an example, nationalism plays a big role in people supporting domestic upstarts, along with much cheaper prices). Bottom line, it's impossible for one phone model to dominate a billion unit market across so many economic groups and country-based preferences. Was never going to happen under any circumstances.
protomyth 13y ago
Because Apple hasn't executed the iPod strategy with the iPhone. The iPod was introduced in Oct 2001. The iPod mini showed up in Jan 2004 at the lower price of $249 (dropping to $199 a year later). The iPod nano arrived on Sep 2005. Each introduction took another chunk of the low-end off the table. With the iPhone, we get the old model and how you sell cellphones is different. I get the feeling the payoff for independent shops is a whole lot better for an Android then an iPhone. I can see where Apple is trying to get more phones sold in its stores. Perhaps the rumors about the new low-end iPhone are true. I can see that driving sales particularly if it is advantageous to local retailers. Something that can be sold for pay-as-you-go customers would boost sales.
- bsaul 13y ago
  that's also what i would pick personnaly for the main reason. i hope apple's going to release a lower price iphone this fall so that we'll be able to validate the assumption. their strategy of "older models will play the role of lower price phones" really don't cut it.For one thing, i want to buy something that will get the same support time than a new thing.

by bsaul 13y ago

RyanZAG 13y ago

If you compare the markets exactly then the real differentiator is simply that Google open-sourced Android into the phone business, but not into the music player business. I'm not sure if 'Google did it' is the real answer to your question or not, but it's interesting to note that competing on level ground with open source is extremely difficult - especially when that open source is backed by very heavy funding.

randallu 13y ago

There was nothing like Android for music players. Samsung is not a software platform company in any way.

bsaul 13y ago
Samsung is definitely a software plaform company. It had Bada that it used in its Wave product line (which surely accounts for a small percentage of their profit) and it will soon have Tizen. Android is definitely one reason, and one could say that samsung AND google won against Apple. That what i meant when i said the business is much more complicated as it requires to be excellent and competitive both in hardware and software.
- randallu 13y ago
  Bada is dead, Tizen looks likely to be DOA. By software platform company I meant a company that can sustain software platforms. It's really easy to ship a new platform every year; no third parties want that though. I agree with your point that Samsung really upped the ante on Android hardware. The GS1 and GS2 were a tipping point on Android hardware performance and quality -- now that Qualcomm is making high performance parts and everyone is doing competitive product design Samsung are less necessary to Android (but still dominating).
rsynnott 13y ago
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a (failed) attempt, though it was later killed off in favour of the (also-failed) Zune.
- randallu 13y ago
  I worked on one of the biggest selling music players that used PlaysForSure, and every other piece of hardware was junk taking seconds to start playing DRM'd tracks, etc. Janus/PlaysForSure was just a library that vendors like Creative/etc dumped into the low perf, crappy design "music player reference code" they got from the SoC vendor and hacked up on. The media player guys didn't own their technology in any meaningful way. Zune could have been amazing! They had a nice big screen, a hardware accelerated UI with rich transitions. They were lightyears ahead of Apple/iPod on technology. Obviously they completely bombed in the market, but imagine if they had found success because of their better technology -- it would have been really hard for Apple to respond since the iPod OS was such a low level affair (plus Apple never would have made a brown iPod!).

kenjackson 13y ago

Mobile operators. Android was early on able to get a toe in the door by targeting carriers that didn't have the iPhone. That gave Android critical mass. No such opening existed in the mp3 market.

kryptiskt 13y ago

Apple extracts far more profit from an iPhone than they ever did with an iPod, leaving them vulnerable for an attack from the bottom of the market (Samsung churned out low-end models before they took on Apple straight on with Galaxy S). And there are another group of players in the phone market, the operators, the more you push them around the more interest they have in establishing alternatives to your products.

adventured 13y ago

The smart phone market is radically larger than the mp3 player market, and it cycles every 24 to 36 months in terms of customers turning over their hardware. I know several iPod owners that have had their hardware for six or seven years; my brother has a bulky white spinning drive version from eight or nine years ago that still works great. There's a big issue with everybody not wanting to own the same phones. In mp3 players there were not very many decent alternatives. In smart phones there are at least five or six good phones available at any given time (and if you're in China, as an example, nationalism plays a big role in people supporting domestic upstarts, along with much cheaper prices). Bottom line, it's impossible for one phone model to dominate a billion unit market across so many economic groups and country-based preferences. Was never going to happen under any circumstances.

protomyth 13y ago

Because Apple hasn't executed the iPod strategy with the iPhone. The iPod was introduced in Oct 2001. The iPod mini showed up in Jan 2004 at the lower price of $249 (dropping to $199 a year later). The iPod nano arrived on Sep 2005. Each introduction took another chunk of the low-end off the table. With the iPhone, we get the old model and how you sell cellphones is different. I get the feeling the payoff for independent shops is a whole lot better for an Android then an iPhone. I can see where Apple is trying to get more phones sold in its stores. Perhaps the rumors about the new low-end iPhone are true. I can see that driving sales particularly if it is advantageous to local retailers. Something that can be sold for pay-as-you-go customers would boost sales.

bsaul 13y ago
that's also what i would pick personnaly for the main reason. i hope apple's going to release a lower price iphone this fall so that we'll be able to validate the assumption. their strategy of "older models will play the role of lower price phones" really don't cut it.For one thing, i want to buy something that will get the same support time than a new thing.