How Much Is That Doggie in the (Little) Window Gonna Change Markets?
With a title like that, I feel the need to explain. This week my son Nick and his girl Elisha came over for dinner, and afterward Elisha showed me why we need to look through different windows to see how to calculate computer market share. Smaller windows, like those on cell phones, show that markets are getting bigger while they change how we share our lives.
After our pork roast in peaches and cherries — lovely recipe, Abby — we sat and talked. Elisha talked about her dog Corky, and we wanted to see pictures. A high-bandwidth, excellent resolution monitor was in my office, a room about 12 steps from our table. I figured she must've had the pictures online. Instead, she said to Nick, "Honey, would you get my phone?" Because her dog's pictures live on her Samsung mobile phone, taken in all their 600x800 glory — but ready to share anywhere.
The next morning I read a print-edition Wired magazine article that chronicles the fortunes of Lenovo. That's the Chinese company that said, "Give us an extra helping of x86" and bought out much of IBM's PC business earlier this year. (Have a look at a BusinessWeek PDF reprint about Lenovo.) Lenovo's share of the PC market when they made their purchase? Just 2%
When I got into my office I then read a message from Wirt Atmar, a brilliant scientist and longtime programmer who's company has developed lots of business software and an elegant lecture presentation software solution, QCShow. Wirt has also developed a deep skepticism about Apple's future. As a way of proving how out-of-favor the Mac is supposed to be, he said the computer has only a 1.8 % market share. But the Lenovo figure of 2% begs the question: Is Apple's 1.8% really low?
I pose another question: How do you figure a computer market's size, when Elisha's Samsung cell phone steps in to do a PC's task? People like her and Nick, in their 20s and with the full attention of the consumer companies like Apple, have a broader idea of what to use to share their lives. I think the millions of iPods, which now display photos, track calendars, and this week can play independent radio podcasts — these count as parts of the market.
Apple's not going anywhere, not as long as it keeps redefining the iPod as an information platform. I disagree with Wirt. Intel-Apple alliance I mentioned a month ago won't change this fundamental part of Apple's identity: Thinking different. Lots of portable hard disks were on the market when the iPod surfaced. Apple was the first to decide a tiny disk and an easy interface could open the gateway to sharing. Yesterday I put my calendar on my iPod, so when I go to a Hill Country Ride for AIDS planning meeting I don't double-schedule anything. Easier than lugging a laptop, and an information habit well outside the idea of "market share."
As a customer I don't give a damn about market share. This isn't movie box office we're talking about here, it's computing tools. Maybe the future will show improvement for Apple's Mac. If the Mac can manage to increase its market share by just two-tenths of a point, then using the math above, it will be as successful as Lenovo.
The comparison won't convince some people. They'll think Apple will be ready for a fall, since it's Apple, doing something different than selling a PC enslaved to Windows. Difference can cause concern for pragmatists.
All I know today is that the size of that doggie in Elisha's window — small, compared to a PC picture — makes the market for computing a lot bigger than just the number of desktops or laptops. We want to share everywhere.
posted by Ron Seybold @ 12:41 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"Hey, my iPod can show pictures just like your camera phone!"
Sure, but can it take that picture, make a phone call, connect to the Internet, show video clips, check your email and send an IM or text message?"
You're right that the cel phone changes the equation for user share, but no MP3 player or computer platform is a winner in the new calculation.
More than the computer monitor or the television, the cel phone has the screen that grabs the most eyeball time, being in view or in use up to 80 percent of the time. That's why the cel phone is the destination of choice for all kinds of multimedia content, including music. (That's also why Bill Gates is pushing hard to cut deals to get Microsoft operating systems to run cel phones.)
Just as advanced cel phones have become the PDA of choice for many users, you'll see the cel phone taking on the tasks of an MP3 player. The only thing keeping it from happening now are some techical issues. Mainly it's that cel phone makers are loath to trade battery life and the talk time revenue it provides them for the power you need to store and play lots of music from your phone -- a function that does not generate revenue.
But you can count on the R&D folks to solve those technical issues soon enough. And then it becomes a revenue stream for cel phone makers. Imagine having the iTunes Store available on a cel phone with the music storage capacity and playback quality of an iPod. It's a vision dancing in the heads of folks at Sprint, Cingular, Verizon Wireless, et al.
The news is not that an iPod or any MP3 player can now do some of what a camera cel phone can do, but that the cel phone will soon be able to do all that MP3 player can do. When that day comes, where do you think Elisha will keep her pictures of Corky AND her music?
From the NY Times July 7, 2005 -- "Music To Your Cellphone" about the current crop of cellphones that can play music:
Farther down the road are phones with built-in hard disks, which can carry larger collections of music. Nokia's N91, with a 4-gigabyte hard disk, is not likely to be available in the United States until 2006, a Nokia spokesman said. And Samsung's SGH-i300, with a 3-gigabyte disk, a scroll wheel for navigation and the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, is expected to be available in Europe soon; it is not yet clear if it will be offered in the United States.
Other music ventures are under way. A Motorola phone announced last year and expected to feature a mobile version of iTunes, Apple's music software, is due for release this summer, according to Motorola.
Napster announced plans with Ericsson, a supplier of technology to wireless operators, to offer a Napster service on the operators' networks. The service is expected to be available within a year and work with a variety of handsets.
I would be thrilled to have a device about the size of an Apple iPod mini that would do all these things. The Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg has been trying these do-all cel phones this year, and his tests show the devices are clever, but so far, pretty slow. I find proof enough of this when I try to buy a ring tone through my Nokia from the "Media Mall." It takes a geek's patience to wait for the menus to load, and a lot of trial and error to figure out how to proceed through the interface. The Samsung phone Abby owns was even slower and balkier.
And how long can it be before Windows Mobile has to be protected from a new crop of mobile viruses? I'd feel better if a cel phone had its own odd operating system. Hmmm, the Mac OS?
Cel phones to play music will have to get as simple as an iPod and as fast before they'll take off. Then there's the battery issue. Early iPods had such bad battery results that Apple had to pay each of us early owners $25 cash to make a class action suit go away. The iPod can last for days on a single charge, but not if you jam around from song to song. It's pushing those hard disks from sector to sector that discharges the batteries. Play a songlist straight through and you use less power.
Post a Comment
<< Home