Mobility: It’s Too Late
Mobility: It’s Too Late by Dave Michels
I hear this phrase all the time. Try it; just mention “Microsoft Phone” or “RIM” in casual conversation and you will hear it too. Now I’m even hearing it with Apple, it’s too late (for their stock) as their growth is slowing.
Let me tell you something about “It’s too late.” It’s never too late.
I remember the first Mac/PC war. The one that ended in Redmond. Microsoft won the enterprise, and won the developers. Walk into an Egghead software store and the Mac software was relegated to a back wall display. There’s a funny thing about technology, it keeps changing. In fact, all things tech (products, services, assumptions) have a shorter and shorter lifespan. Expect the unexpected.
Here are some facts to consider:
- This week RIM is going to announce the BB10. The future of the company depends on a successful market reaction. What many don’t realize is that regardless of market reaction, a lot of demand is going to open up. If the market likes what RIM did, then RIM wins. If the market rejects what RIM did, then all those loyal RIM customers (including enterprise customers) will end their loyalty and start spending on replacements. Either way, the mobility market is going to grow in 2013.
- Most people don’t have 4G/LTE phones yet, especially iPhone users. LTE itself is young and newer faster versions are still yet to come. The LTE iPhone is currently only available in a handful of countries.
- We all know that Apple’s stock price has gone down thus reducing its valuation, but how much? The company lost an entire Microsoft in market capitalization in the past five months. That’s harsh. Apple reported continued strong demand and the highest profit in its (and possibly the world’s) history. How much profit? A bit more profit than Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle combined. Seems like an over-reaction to me.
- VoIP implementations continue to replace TDM technologies, creating a larger market for smartphone integrations to UC solutions.
- Most smartphones come with a two-year contract. That’s about their lifespan. They are purchased all the time, thus we have a continuous upgrade cycle taking place. That is if the owner holds out for no termination fees. Many don’t have these fees because they obtained phones without subsidy.
- Many non-phone mobile devices have no contract whatsoever. Wi-Fi only tablets, iPod Touch, hand-me-down phones, and some smartphones such as the current Nexus are sold at a reasonable price without a contract requirement.
- These mobile devices are increasingly customized for a variety of personal tasks including health monitoring, remote control, photos, social connections, even home automation. Though many haven’t realized this yet, they will.
- The amount of R&D taking place around mobility is phenomenal. Whatever you have now will be totally obsolete soon regardless of current market saturation. Be it form factor, rigidity, battery life, sensors, finger print scanners, encryption, or the various radios (esp. Bluetooth and NFC), etc. The obsolescence factor continues to shorten product life.
- Through most of the modern smartphone’s history, the space has been dominated by one vendor - more recently a duopoly. Microsoft, RIM, Ubuntu, and even Mozilla intend to change that. Success is far from assured, but we can be certain to see a lot of competitive innovation in the next few years.
- The vast majority of the populated world is still discovering smartphones. China in particular, which seems to favor phones from Apple and Microsoft, will offer a steeper growth curve ahead than what we’ve seen behind.
If the smartphone wave was a game of baseball, we are likely in the fourth inning. Competitive forces, democratization, new social norms and expectations are changing the way we work and play. We are far from market saturation and even if we were, obsolescence trumps saturation. Smartphones don’t carry anywhere near the same level of loyalty or commitment witnessed in prior technology cycles.
It is not too late for RIM, Microsoft or platforms yet to be announced.