Actually, I was thinking Flash vs. H.264 and HTML5.
Apple leaned a lot from the original Macintosh days -- they can have their high degree of control and provide user satisfaction by targeting the high end of the market and delivering a total quality of ownership higher than their competitors.
That still leaves plenty of market for other folks. It doesn't have to be a case of "I win, you lose" if each company finds its own niche and nibbles at the edges of the other guys just enough to foster competition.
I am thinking iPhone versus Andriod. This is one war Andriod is going to win, because Android is on phones from practically every major phone maker(apart from Apple and Nokia), and they are on practically every cell phone company's networks, and they are more open than the iPhone.
“Apple leaned a lot from the original Macintosh days —”
Yeah, they learned so much that they are doing the same thing they did with the Mac which allowed Windows to win, by allowing Google to swiftly grab the smartphone market share from them.
“they can have their high degree of control and provide user satisfaction by targeting the high end of the market and delivering a total quality of ownership higher than their competitors.”
Well Andiord smartphones like the HTC Desire, Incredidle and EVO 4G are at least every bit as good as the iPhone (if not better), and Andriod 2.2 which is coming out next week, is smoking fast. Good luck trying to get folks to pay for your so-called “high end” iPhones when they can get equal or better experience cheaper from Andriod.