ZDNet’s roundup of the smart phone battles is an excellent primer to the battle of the goliaths. For me, the most compelling part of the story comes when they handicap the field:
Apple: The 3G iPhone will move units because it has an enthusiastic customer base that will continue to buy the latest from Apple. That’s powerful. Meanwhile, international expansion and enterprise interest keeps Apple rolling.
RIM: RIM isn’t going anywhere and will maintain its share and strength. In the enterprise, RIM is entrenched. In the consumer market, RIM is pretty interesting. As far as buzz goes, look for RIM and Apple to be the leaders.
Nokia: Was the Symbian deal savvy or desperate? Time will tell, but there are a lot of financial types saying that Nokia shares are a value. Nokia is a big dog globally and has a nice mix of high-priced and low-priced devices. It sure would be nice if Nokia were more of a player in the U.S.
Palm: It’s a bit depressing when Palm’s big plan is a refreshed Treo line powered by Windows Mobile. There are a ton of devices powered by Windows Mobile. Where’s the differentiation? And that’s the problem. There is little to differentiate Palm’s devices–except for Centro’s price. That’s not a great model.
Sony Ericsson: This device maker moves a lot of units and has some Walkman mojo courtesy of Sony. However, the company will have an increasingly difficult time differentiating itself.
Samsung and LG: Both are big. Both can be trendy. And both can play the price game.
Motorola: No groundbreaking designs. Commodity handsets. Still decent market share. Even when Motorola spins off the handset division it’s questionable whether the unit can stand alone.
The big three : RIM, Apple and Nokia, aren’t exactly Microsoft centric organizations. Each have embedded operating systems that play better with the network than they do with the desktop, and if Microsoft’s failed online strategy was the first nail in the coffin, this would be the second. Anyone for nail number 3?
One Comment
I agree with the points stated for each handset manufacturer. I’m a big fan of Nokia & Apple right now. While I think the device design matters, I believe it’s going to be the mobile applications running on the devices that propel these manufactures forward or cause their market share to crumble. I think Nokia’s Symbian move was very savvy & not a sign of desperation at all. Rather it was a sign of acknowledging the importance of satisfying the demands of the open-source development community & ensuring that this very powerful community would develop applications for their device.