Microsoft will not FOLLOW Apple in phones
A couple months ago, when Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple would launch an iPhone, many bloggers started predicting Microsoft would soon follow Apple in the cellphone market.
Well, just in case you didn’t know, Microsoft entered the mobile phones market in 1998 with Windows CE and later, Windows Mobile. And whilst Apple targets a conservative 1% global market share, Microsoft provides software for 35% of the market already.
To make my point clearer, should Microsoft decide to launch a ZunePhone (250K answers on Google) or not, it’s Apple who is following Microsoft in the mobile devices market, and certainly not the other way around.
Let’s take the reasoning further. Since Apple is a multimedia company (and probably the best at providing a multimedia experience), I bet Apple will launch a gaming console in the next 2 years to compete further with Sony (PlayStation and Walkman) and Microsoft (XBox 360, Vista, Powerpoint (vs. Keynote) & Zune).
To repeat myself: it’s Apple who’s walking in Microsoft footsteps.
Addendum 10:50am: thanks to Kari for pointing out that I’m guilty of not having mentioned Google and more particularly the GooglePhone initative in this post. More soon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRLRjKCGHek]
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More accurately, Microsoft entered mobile phone _operating system_ market in 1998 with Windows CE & Mobile. This entirely different market than what iPhone is in, luxury mobile phone devices.
There are already hints that AppleTV supports “casual gaming”, so your bet is quite sure. I really doubt they’ll launch a “next-gen” gaming console in next two years, if that’s what you meant.
I still think that Apple is a hardware company.
I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t mention Google anywhere (other as an search provider), even though there are recent rumors of GooglePhone or how Google is silently widening its fronts. I believe that Google’s secret plan to compete with Microsoft Office will make Apple’s iWork feel a bit redundant (except for Keynote) (given that Google can make Safari-compatible Javascript in the future first).
..can a Google Music Player be far away? =)
Kari, I should’ve mentioned Google, you’re totally right. I added a sentence in the post about, and I should blog about it soon (unless you choose to do it, and post a complementary note
)
Thanks, and take care,
Jeremy
Jeremy : I suggest that you crosspost this nice piece of marketing to Usenet’s FCSM newsgroup. I’m pretty sure you’ll get quite a good success there. Oh, by the way : ‘FCSM’ stands for ” fr.comp.sys.mac “, one of the most incredible place for trolling
I had a conversation with an innovation-student the other day, who mentioned that Microsoft bought hardware-makers to launch their MS mobile OS, which was being shunned by Nokia’s and co, who were developing and running their own Symbian platform. I can’t confirm this, but perhaps MS has been in the phone-market all along?
As far as the Zune-phone goes, I’m not sure whether it would be the smartest move on MS’s part, considering they use Zune-packaging to display iPods now
. I don’t see them giving up, but they still have a long way to go towards making their music-player a competitor, let along focus on a whole new hardware-application.
that should be “… but perhaps MS has been in the phone-[b]hardware[/b] market all along?” To not make it sound like I’m just rephrasing what you wrote.
Marc> I’d rather keep it the conversation centralized here; I couldn’t manage answering comments on different places.
Vince> A ZunePhone seems to have been on the Microsoft roadmap for quite a while.
The more I think about this, I think the headlines sums the whole thing up pretty well. As long as you forget all about that Microsoft vs. Apple thingie.
Just look at these headlines and think if they’d make any sense:
“Xerox will not follow HP in music players”
“Apple will not follow Nokia in phone networks”
“Dell will not follow Sun in cross-platform programming languages”
“Suunto will not follow Garmin in in-car GPS navigation”
…or more generally, “Company will not follow other company, with whom it has some overlapping business (and a legacy of rivalry), in to market that is totally out of their strategy but fits the other one’s”.
I think that public perception of the long-lasting rivalry between Apple and Microsoft has made it difficult for some people to understand that while they have overlapping business, they have markets the other one will not follow.
Hi Jeremy,
Apple already tried to make a console, less than 10 year ago, it was the Pipin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin
I’m not sure they’ll try it again that soon.
I bet they will.
As it’s been discovered, Apple TV is just a stripped down OS X, I still believe that’s going to be the platform on which Apple might build any console gaming business they might be planning.
I still doubt that they’d enter that market, but if they did, that’d probably be the platform.
But I think anyone who’d be interested in Apple gaming console, already bought a Wii.
ı agree with you