"There is no happiness like happiness at other's misfortune", said some wise people, and they were right. Particularly if this misfortune befalls a leader (after all, you have to be high up to be able to fall in the first place). When Microsoft dominated the world, everyone gunned for them (well they still dominate large portions of the world, but the give the impression of decline; so now they garner pity); Google's honeymoon is over and for the last few years it's been Apple. It started with the iPhone, which Android was going to kill, and now the tech pundits have turned their attention to the iPad. The only question that seems to enter anyone's mind whenever a new tablet comes along is "will it be the iPad killer?" Now the Windows 8, Microsoft's planned next OS is receiving the mantel of iOS assassin. Well, at least it's targeting Android as well. Poor Android - never had much of a shot at the tablet market, and now, apparently, it's being killed.
The very concept is nonsense. Too many people mistakenly assume Android has triumphed over iPhone just because it surpassed it in number of devices sold. But I've not seen any figures that suggest the number of iPhones sold has gone down. In fact, considering it's only one phone from one company with two available models, it's quite staggering how popular it is. Android certainly sells well, but it hasn't hurt the iPhone sales, so I don't accept that Android has served as the "iPhone killer".
Similarly, neither Android nor Windows 8 (whenever it comes out) will be an "iPad killer". That's not to say they won't sell well, and eventually surpass the number of iPads sold (in fact I'm certain they will - at least Android will); but the iPad sales won't go down for a long time, I predict. Not until the entire market is saturated.
The thing is that Apple never looks to dominate a market to the exclusion of all others. They're not in the business of making hardware for everyone in the world. Their prices alone guarantee that a good portion of the population will never have one. Also, they don't make nearly enough effort to appeal to the business community; at least the tablets they build is not designed for the business user. Of course, they don't mind, obviously, if business adopt them, but the iPad is designed for a particular type of retail customer, and Apple makes every effort to please that type of customer, sacrificing others that may come along. Apple cares more about this than sale numbers - or at least it thinks it can sell better if it is focused in such a way. Otherwise, they'd make a larger range of products with different price points; they'd compromise on style and design; and they could even license their OS out to other hardware manufacturers. All of those would bump up the number of tablets sold, but Apple won't do any of it.
That's why there's plenty of room for a whole bunch of competitors from every kind, without anyone getting a chance to hurt Apple. There's plenty of room in the lower pricing tier market - Amazon is going to take that over in a storm, I predict - and the business market as well (where Microsoft can make good headway). So don't for a second think Apple is going to be worried about any of these companies taking out its market share.
So long as Apple can maintain a decent sized market share - and they can - they'll have the developers to write the apps for their products. Android phones have passed the iPhone long ago in volume sold and market share percentage; yet there's no drop in the number of apps flooding the AppStore.
So give it a rest, tech pundits. Judge the new tablets and OS-s on their merit, and not on whether they will kill the iPad or the iPhone or Android or whatever; because they won't.
No comments:
Post a Comment