Understanding the impact of the iPhone - ZT
platform shift + new business model = INNOVATION
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BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- What I'm about to explain may seem obvious, but I'm not sure anyone fully understands the sort of tectonic and fundamental shift taking place in the tech sector with the development and fruition of the new smart phone as epitomized by Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
I have been thinking about this development since the device was first shipped. While much of the buzz around the product was credited to good PR, I think there was a deeper meaning to the apparent nuttiness.
First of all, the tech community, specifically the computer users, have been waiting for an inevitable and so-called "platform shift." This has been building up for years.
There were a number of basic beliefs (you may have heard of these yourselves) that have permeated the computer business for the past 10 or more years.
There will be a major platform shift away from the current Wintel machine.
Mobile devices will become more and more important.
Internet connectivity will be done mostly on mobile devices, primarily the cell phone.
Cloud computing will dominate the century.
If we see the iPhone as a new computing platform most of these core beliefs -- as listed above -- are fulfilled, but with a twist. If we forget about the end of the PC and the death of the Wintel platform and simply see a new segment emerging to compliment and evolve differently than desktop computing, then we'll have a grip on all this.
When the PC came along in a world of mainframe computing there was no such thing as "desktop computing." It was not fully understood.
The desktop computer ended up complimenting large scale systems and not replacing them. It has its own strengths that made it valuable for the individual user. This is what we have with the iPhone and probably the Google Android as it evolves.
These are more than smart phones, they are major comp uter platforms for specific applications that cannot be done on a PC, but can easily compliment a PC the way a desktop computer can compliment and augment a mainframe.
To fully grasp this you have to rethink what happened with the first generation of smart phones as developed by Microsoft . The entire thrust was to do nothing more than miniaturize the desktop PC. In other words give users a PC in their pocket.
There was nothing really unique about the Microsoft smart phones. They stored PowerPoint presentations and Word documents and ran Windows software as best they could -- if at all.
The end result was a moribund smart-phone business that looked to be dead in the water or, at best, an odd niche market.
Other attempts at improving this segment included inventive phones such as the Neonode from Sweden. It is a gesture-based phone with similar touch-sensitive technology as the iPhone.
But everything was a phone first and a computer second. Apple flipped the model and centered the buzz around the oddball but often pra ctical applications that run on the iPhone.
And in the Apple ads they know how important this is by showing how a user downloads an installs an app. No ad for a mobile phone has ever veered in this direction.
The eventual market for these devices as envisioned by Steve Jobs and Apple will eventually be bigger than anything we've ever seen and should surpass the massive PC and desktop computing market before the dust settles.
While all the handset makers and carriers are making look-alike phones with plenty of cool functionality, only Apple and Google see this for what it is -- a genuine platform shift and an entirely new market direction for mobile devices.
The odd men out in this game appear to be Microsoft and perhaps Research In Motion . RIM may not be able to adjust to this fast enough to continue its winning ways, a victim of its own success.
What I admire most in this scene is the fact that Google actually foresaw the importance of the iPhone model and did something about it. If the handset makers, who will pro bably never get an iPhone license, manage to survive in this evolving market, I can assure you they will be thanking Google since the open-source Android code can be used by all of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- What I'm about to explain may seem obvious, but I'm not sure anyone fully understands the sort of tectonic and fundamental shift taking place in the tech sector with the development and fruition of the new smart phone as epitomized by Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
I have been thinking about this development since the device was first shipped. While much of the buzz around the product was credited to good PR, I think there was a deeper meaning to the apparent nuttiness.
First of all, the tech community, specifically the computer users, have been waiting for an inevitable and so-called "platform shift." This has been building up for years.
There were a number of basic beliefs (you may have heard of these yourselves) that have permeated the computer business for the past 10 or more years.
There will be a major platform shift away from the current Wintel machine.
Mobile devices will become more and more important.
Internet connectivity will be done mostly on mobile devices, primarily the cell phone.
Cloud computing will dominate the century.
If we see the iPhone as a new computing platform most of these core beliefs -- as listed above -- are fulfilled, but with a twist. If we forget about the end of the PC and the death of the Wintel platform and simply see a new segment emerging to compliment and evolve differently than desktop computing, then we'll have a grip on all this.
When the PC came along in a world of mainframe computing there was no such thing as "desktop computing." It was not fully understood.
The desktop computer ended up complimenting large scale systems and not replacing them. It has its own strengths that made it valuable for the individual user. This is what we have with the iPhone and probably the Google Android as it evolves.
These are more than smart phones, they are major comp uter platforms for specific applications that cannot be done on a PC, but can easily compliment a PC the way a desktop computer can compliment and augment a mainframe.
To fully grasp this you have to rethink what happened with the first generation of smart phones as developed by Microsoft . The entire thrust was to do nothing more than miniaturize the desktop PC. In other words give users a PC in their pocket.
There was nothing really unique about the Microsoft smart phones. They stored PowerPoint presentations and Word documents and ran Windows software as best they could -- if at all.
The end result was a moribund smart-phone business that looked to be dead in the water or, at best, an odd niche market.
Other attempts at improving this segment included inventive phones such as the Neonode from Sweden. It is a gesture-based phone with similar touch-sensitive technology as the iPhone.
But everything was a phone first and a computer second. Apple flipped the model and centered the buzz around the oddball but often pra ctical applications that run on the iPhone.
And in the Apple ads they know how important this is by showing how a user downloads an installs an app. No ad for a mobile phone has ever veered in this direction.
The eventual market for these devices as envisioned by Steve Jobs and Apple will eventually be bigger than anything we've ever seen and should surpass the massive PC and desktop computing market before the dust settles.
While all the handset makers and carriers are making look-alike phones with plenty of cool functionality, only Apple and Google see this for what it is -- a genuine platform shift and an entirely new market direction for mobile devices.
The odd men out in this game appear to be Microsoft and perhaps Research In Motion . RIM may not be able to adjust to this fast enough to continue its winning ways, a victim of its own success.
What I admire most in this scene is the fact that Google actually foresaw the importance of the iPhone model and did something about it. If the handset makers, who will pro bably never get an iPhone license, manage to survive in this evolving market, I can assure you they will be thanking Google since the open-source Android code can be used by all of them.