Apple v Microsoft Ping!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 04/18/2010 2:09:43 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Pundits are declaring mobile the new PC. The number of mobile phones far outstrips the number of desktops. Mobile phones are available to people in the developing world who never had an opportunity to buy or even use a PC. With phones becoming smarter, there will be even less need for people to own PCs. Microsoft has dominated the PC-based world ever since it drove Apple close to extinction in the mid ’90s. But with Apple’s strong footing in mobile, its recent release of a larger, tablet form factor, iPad, also based on its mobile iPhone OS, and more form factors likely on the way to challenge the traditional PC, we may be in for a rematch.
Several companies realize that the future lies in mobile. Google, with its obsession about mobile advertising and its foray into the mobile OS space with Android, is a good example. And Microsoft is certainly rethinking its strategy with Windows Phone. But while these and other players develop their mobile strategies, Apple has already built a huge lead, not only with its powerful iPhone operating system, but with the vast number and variety of applications available on that OS. The jury’s still out on whether Apple’s iPad will be the huge success many expect it to be. But even so, the app development community has so much faith in Apple’s ecosystem that we’ve seen startups and bigger companies racing to join a gold rush of app development for the platform. There are more than 150,000 apps available on iPhone and a lot more to come on iPad.
It wasn’t too long ago that we all watched Microsoft drive Apple out to the sidelines of the personal computing market where it would subsist as a niche player. (If you want evidence that Apple is still smarting over its decades-old loss of the PC market to Microsoft, look no further than the boilerplate it includes on every press release: “Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh.”) But now that Apple’s gained a solid foothold in the mobile market, there’s nothing to stop it from expanding its mobile OS and mobile devices — from smartphones and tablets to other, more computing-intensive devices — until it’s once again in a face-to-face fight with Microsoft for dominance of the computing market. And if it does, this time I believe it’ll win.
Here is how Apple could use its lead in the mobile market to redefine the PC industry, and unlike Microsoft, which has gone mobile by stripping down its Windows operating system to create Windows Mobile, will move up the market, from smartphone to PC-like device, by growing its iPhone OS to support new kinds of functionality and devices.
1. Computing is becoming more mobile — whether via a smartphone, a netbook, or a laptop, and consumers are increasingly demanding stronger machines. They want to take their computing power with them, rather than leaving it at home or in office. This means that, whatever future computers might look like, they obviously need to be mobile. Which means they need to be lighter, smaller, and nimbler. Since iPhone OS was designed to meet those needs, it makes more sense to scale it up for bigger screens (iPad for example), rather than scaling down Mac OS to fit a more mobile device.
2. Apple can also tap into its huge ecosystem of application developers and existing apps built for iPhone when designing this next generation of mobile computers. Although iPhone apps don’t really look pretty on iPad, it doesn’t take much effort to customize an iPhone app for iPad. With iPad, Apple is poised to take even a stronger lead in the mobile apps market, and the strong apps ecosystem it’s building will eventually help it compete more effectively in personal computing.
3. Apple has learned a lot from operating in the mobile market. It is using that experience and success in mobile to change the game in the bigger device category. We’ve already seen features, like the multitouch, move from iPhone to MacBook with its multitouch trackpad. Apple will do the same with iPad: It will learn from its sales and usage in the next couple of years to then launch a device that would be a direct threat to today’s (and tomorrow’s) laptops.
Imagine a stronger and slightly bigger iPad (with perhaps even a keyboard) with multi-tasking capability among features that are lacking in today’s iPad. Combine that device with thousands of apps, and it is not hard to see how that could threaten Microsoft’s dominance of the computing market like never before. The biggest reason people buy Windows PCs today is the abundance of apps and the fact that so many other people have them (so that it’s easy, for example, to share a Word document with anyone around the world).
The iPhone OS won’t just offer a lot more apps, it will also offer newer and more feature-rich apps than are available in the PC world. More and more people will be used to working with Apple apps such as iWorks (Apple’s version of “Office”) on iPad, and will therefore seek to carry them over to bigger screens.
Now, I’m not saying I know what that next bigger, stronger device from Apple will look like or whether it will have a physical keyboard or another type of input device. I’m not even saying that device will be like a laptop — in fact, it most likely will not. Laptops have no space in a new paradigm where features and strengths such as touchscreens, ability to turn on a device in a snap, soft keyboards, and mobility rule. But whatever form that computing device takes, Apple will be a dominant player in the space. It will be a world that will be driven by a new breed of apps and in which Microsoft won’t have the upper hand anymore.
When that happens, the threat to Apple’s mobile dominance won’t come from another platform (like Windows or Blackberry) but from web apps and cloud computing. Which means Apple could eventually face another Microsoft in Google. It should be an interesting game to watch.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
The key is form factor...PC’s operate from small net books to large monster gaming towers. There are small home theater PC’s nearly silent in operation and the size of a shoe box. There is a whole industry that supplies parts, cases, hard drives ect so that folks can build their own PC’s according to need and best price. Windows 7 can operate in all of them. Apple computers don’t have nearly the variety of form factors that can fit in a majority of user experiences. There certainly is no way to legally build one’s own customized Apple machines as the parts industry is almost exclusively designed for PC’s.
I think most folks see mobile products as adjuncts to their main systems, like smaller craft attached to mother ships that go out and come back again to be synched and upgraded when necessary. Apple’s mobile systems still have to play nice with MS systems or else they would again risk being marginalized by other competing mobile platforms.
Where are they going to get the money it would take to do that with? Not in this depression.
LLS
Try squeezing dual 21” monitors into an iPod.
Where are they going to get the money it would take to do that with? Not in this depression.
Well..., Apple is a whole lot better off than any of the other companies in the same field, that's for sure.
I mean, they keep surpassing sales estimates and even keep selling products "even in this depression" ... and are debt free, and have billions of dollars in the bank, just sitting there, waiting for the next project and/or next big product rollout, and their "cash hoard" keeps getting bigger and bigger -- even in this depression.
So, if anyone can do it, Apple can, with the finances they have and the sales that they currently have. And if Apple can't do it with those kinds of finances and wildly successful sales of product rollouts (like they've had), then no one else will be able to "do it either" with their high debt (in those other companies) and lower sales -- "in this depression"...
Computers are being low cost appliances. This is the battleground and where the war will be fought. As for who will will remains to be seen.
I’m self-employed and sitting in my home office using a desktop. There is no way I could ever use a mobile device for all my business applications including updating & maintaining my website, Excel spreadsheets, large Word docs, marketing brochures, business email, PDFs, SKYPE to communicate with my Euro and Far East partners, etc.
My point exactly...different tools for different uses thus, I don’t see the “home desk top” really fading away.
How about a billion dollars in revenue from the iPad’s first few weeks? Or the many billion dollars cash in the bank?
Wireless video. Use whatever displays are simply nearby.
Never say never, you will eat your words.
That's why I do NOT have a smart phone but take a small 9" netbook when I travel. Small but still far better ergonomically to retrieve my email and surf web at night in my hotel room.
Ideas cycle, can you say docking station?
Do you work for Apple? I’ve always wondered because you constantly post pro-Apple articles.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I don’t think so - too many words to type! I understand your point - just doubt if those advances are for me and how I use technology. Now, where’s my abacus?
And Volkswagens have been around since WWII. What percentage of cars on the road are VWs (or Yugos, etc,)? Not everyone wants nothing but "cheap"...
Until they’ve got something that will go head-to-head with Exchange, they’re not going to convince a lot of corporations to forklift their MS systems for Apples.
~~~~~~~~
Right now, whenever I choose to do so, I turn on my MacBook and have a 9 (nine) foot (diagonal) display at my disposal. And, if I want a bigger screen, I just zoom...
Ever hear of wireless? Bluetooth?
FYI, I bought a wireless projector to use for my presentations. Also works great as a working display...
And I can be (as I am right now) kicked back in my recliner, creating a huge, detailed GIS map composed of dozens of layers (including false-color IR overhead inagery) while working...
~~~~~~~~
Good FRname -- your technical vision is already "Paleo..."
~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.