The paradox of the Windows PC market has been that Microsoft’s broadly licensed software supposedly saves hardware makers from investing in software development while ensuring compatibility, when in reality it adds significant costs to PC makers while limiting their ability to differentiate themselves. That explains why PC makers have been perpetually merging together and going out of business while Microosft has rolled in money over the last two decades.
... which led to the boring, gray monoculture we suffered under during The Microsoft Era.
now that microsoft has finally done its evolutionary duty and has begun its course of repeated foot-shooting, let's hope it's at least another decade or two before another, similar monopoly gains traction.
The cellphone is already something of a commodity. The carriers would love to see the same thing happen to the smartphone. This would be great for the carriers, because they sell a complement to the smartphone -- cell phone service.
Having a broadly licensed OS for smartphones might do this. Apple might not like this. Then again, Apple might like it very much. They could sell "high end" smartphones for a premium, much as they do with PCs now.
There are a number of problems with the article, and this is one of them.
Phone makers building products on top of Android _will_ be able to differenciate themelves, to the extent that they want to, because the platform is extensible. It's dissimilar to an OEM licensing Windows - they can pick the bits that save them money, and throw away the rest.
I was actually just laughing at that quote. That period of low profits and M&A resulting in hundreds of competitors eventually ending in a few happens in EVERY major industry. Cars, airlines, cell phone providers. It would have happened if Linux beat MS to the punch.
Well there goes parts of my life I will never get back.
Using the past to predict the future works. But using the past as the ONLY GUIDE to predict the future is mad raving idiocy. Did anyone else get about half way and think "What the fuck is this guy going on about?" He is clearly over analyzing it and failing to see the big picture.
He also calls Windows Mobile a "total failure", despite me having a hard time seeing a single smart-phone not a Windows mobile phone when out among people. I honestly have no idea how he can possible come to a conclusion like that.
Granted, I don't live in the US where the carriers have a history of killing any interest in sophisticated mobile devices with high speed mobile internet trough vendor lock-ins, non-competition and asinine pricing.
In its first full quarter of sales, the iPhone exceeded the marketshare of Microsoft's entire lineup of Windows Mobile smartphones in North America. That's HUGE. Despite Microsoft's massive head start, years of smartphones sold, they were overtaken in a single quarter. You could easily call that "total failure" without it being a huge hyperbole.
That still only transfers to a market where people are used to lockins. In Europe the Apple iPhone lockins make it a lot less sexy.
I'm not saying it's a phone which can be ignored entirely, but the truth is that I still see Windows Mobile smart-phones everywhere having a hard time seeing anything else. Hence calling Windows mobile a complete failure seems like a rather narrow look at things which has no basis in reality.
Add to this that basically every brand of phone sold here except for the iPhone comes with any carrier and any plan you like, and the iPhone has serious hurdles it needs to overcome to be a viable alternative to most people here.
Many words but he's entirely missing the point. All these comparisons completely ignore the difference between gadgets and platforms. A platform is nothing without many third party softwares that run on top of it. Phones or MP3 players are gadgets that come with the main functionality built in and don't need any third party software to be useful. Their usefulness depends on how well these core functions are implemented and not much else.
The role of DOS or the Mac simply doesn't exist in the mobile space and therefore these comparisons are meaningless. Mobile platforms don't exist. Phones are just gadgets and smart phones are gadgets with optional addons.
