Mitchell Ashley, Microsoft apologist for NetworkWorld tells us why he thinks the iPhone is doomed
The iPhone is certain to fade into history as another cool Apple innovation, that others soon rushed competitive, like-products to market, blowing away any significant lead Apple might have. The iPod mp3 player is an industry Apple essentially created, the iPhone isn’t. Too many major players are in the mobile phone market, who have and will bring iPhone-like products to market over the coming months and years. LG has already done so with the LG Voyager phone, and now Microsoft’s plans for Windows Mobile 7 OS have been leaked and described in considerable detail by InsideMicrosoft blogger Nathan Weinberg.
Does anyone remember what the market was like before Apple released the iPod in 2001? There were certainly lots of MP3 players on the market, some of them flash based and some of them with laptop hard drives in them. There wasn’t any decent way to buy music online and there was only really MusicMatch JukeBox for syncing your tunes that you did have (ripped using WinAMP or MacAMP).
To claim Apple invented the Mp3 player market is simply a lie. A massive straw man argument designed to help prop up the further argument that the iiPhone will fail because Apple did not create that market.
Apple has a 70%+ market share in MP3 players. Are we expecting them to take the same in the phone market? Of course not. They’re never going to release a £10 phone you can buy down in Tesco along with £10 of free minutes. The vast majority of the market are these low end handsets, so feature-free that I was surprised they still existed (until I bought one as an unlocked emergency handset a few months ago).
Apple did manage to snare 19% of the smartphone market in 6 months which is a much more interesting market – one where people will actually pay for the use of a technology device. Isolating that market aside from the most basic handsets begins to crystallise out Apple’s intended market: paying customers.
The article is fluff, tripe and full of FUD. It’s meant to make you hold out for the next big thing from Microsoft. Yes, it took Microsoft six months to copy key features of the iPhone and create mockups of what they plan to ship sometime in 2009. Yes, six months to invent photoshopped images. And you’ll have to wait over a year to use this stuff.
And of course, Apple will be standing still during this time…