Being a pundit is fun....
One of our clients, Vizrt (www.vizrt.com), have just acquired a company that uses computer graphics to enhance the action replays during televised sports events. The technology enables us all to try our hand at being the expert analyst of a particular key moment of the game. Guess what - the IT industry is no different. We all have our own views on the major issues of the day (the ‘game changers’) and we all enjoy listening to industry ‘experts’ expressing their views on the topic.
So, if we were in the pub winding down before Christmas, here’s what I’d say about the competitors for the domination of the mobile Internet: Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
Apple - what can you say? Steve Jobs has done it again. Cool technology and a challenger brand approach has seen Apple become the darling of the stock market. Apple II all over again. And just like Apple II (and its successor, the Mac) exactly the same mistakes. Apple have bet the ranch on out-innovating the competition but have not learnt the lesson that closed, proprietary systems never win because only the favoured few develop for them. Eventually, they are overwhelmed by the ubiquity of the competition.
Microsoft - the great survivor. Who says elephants can’t dance? Microsoft nearly called the Internet wrongly in ‘95 and then pursued the right strategy so vigorously they wound up in court for being a monopolist. Microsoft have been off the pace in mobile technology for a long time now - will Windows Phone 7 be their saviour or is it too little too late? It certainly provides a wonderful level of integration with the rest of the Microsoft estate and there are 700 million Microsoft users out there. Our view? The one true unique they have over Apple and Google as far as mobile operating systems is concerned is the X-Box community. If they adopt Phone 7 in serious numbers then the elephant is dancing again.
Apple and Microsoft have some things in common: they have both been around for quite a while. They also both compete on the basis of trying to develop the best product. Their more recent competitors for dominance are competing for the best algorithm.
Google - the indexers of everything. We know where you live, we know where your children go to school, and a whole host of other things besides. And anything Microsoft can do we can do to (except at the moment X-Box): mail, docs, calendar etc etc. Already Android is the clear market leader in the smart phone OS race. So what might stop them? Apple? - already consigned to number 2. Microsoft? - the tide has been running in Google’s direction for a while now.
Facebook - your digital identity. Who needs Second Life when you have given Facebook a clear digital description of yourself? You are your own avatar. Behaviours change slowly over time. Google’s paymasters can target you on the basis of what you are looking for. Facebook’s ambitions are far greater - to be the platform through which you interact with the internet. And interaction is easy, because they will know not just your behaviours but their algorithm can be more effective because you have defined not just yourself (personal data, likes etc.), but your community (i.e. your Facebook friends) as well. By having an ever closer integration into your mobile phone you need never wander far from Facebook and who cares what your phone’s OS is?
So there you have it. Who will win? The honest answer is I don’t know. Whenever something ‘new’ turns up in IT the market eventually boils things down to a number one, a number two and, what for want of a better description might be called the highly differentiated (or even the eccentrics).
However, with four giants all spending large amounts of development (and marketing) dollars on trying to out-innovate the others, the amount of innovation that is going to happen in the next couple of years is going to be incredible.
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