Seriously, if you're a maker of any type of consumer electronics, you have to just be hoping and praying that Apple doesn't decide to venture into your market.
I'm pretty sure they just killed Blackberry, Palm, and TiVo.
Look out Magic Bullet, the iBlender is coming soon!
2 comments:
Killer? No, at this point I don't think so. $500 and a locked in 2 years to the crappiest wireless provider there is? (Cingular) Not exactly making me want to rip out my credit card.
But, if you look at the initial rollout of the iPod (Mac only, firewire only, and iTunes was pretty weak at the time) there are a lot of similarities. Apple owns the mobile media player market, so if the iPhone were more widely featured and compatible (and cheaper) they'd have:
- Major product shortages due to demand
- A whole lot of users on some really new (just out of beta) firmware **RISKY**
Because they're apple, they have a guaranteed early adopter market (that's just the kind of company they are - they have the cult following) so they know the product will be at least mildly successful if it doesn't completely suck. In another year they can decide whether to cut the product and run or expand it, make it compatible with more providers and ramp up production to lower the cost, all the while having more time to shore up the software and fix bugs.
Pretty ingenious strategy if you ask me. Intentionally prevent the rapid spread of a product to allow it to mature properly, and in a few years, you'll own the market.
No they will not. It is a great product but is not very business compatible. Many people need their phones to sync to their business systems. Blackberry still dominates this arena.
Post a Comment