Are Apple today the Sony Ericsson of the 2000's?

I don't think so, there wasn't a single SonyEricsson without issues. They were generally good ideas with poor implementation, often let down by poor, slow, buggy software.

The K and W Series of phones I had were quite stable in software.

The K800i I had (Same phone as James Bond in Casino Royale) had the amazing Xenon flash on it too! So did the Satio which I had too.

The Satio did take great pictures at the time and still holds it own now but the lens technology is showing its age by the time I sold it.

I'm a little surprised no smart phone has got a Xenon flash yet but I expect it would kill the battery in no time if you used it a lot.

Those were the days when we had to attach cameras to our phones




Crazy idea back then, but I loved the T68.... it was one of the first at&t phones once it went GSM from TDMA. I had it on day one, what a disaster that roll out was.

You actually make valid points.

Funny part is if Apple continues to ignore their user base, they'll end up the same way Sony did.... having no relevance in the industry besides a story of their past.

I hope Apple wakes up and starts listening to what people want. Smaller screens, bigger screens, higher-res screens, longer battery. HTC and Samsung are listening, which is why they're still growing globally and Apple is stagnant on a global sales perspective.

I think that software isn't really a comparable element in this debate. It's like an analyst recently (ridiculously) said on CNBC: "Apple is today what Polaroid was in the 1970's. It could ... go bust." From an equity analysis perspective he may be correct, but the businesses have fundamental differences in what their goals are and the directions they take. Polaroid wanted to capitalize on a certain business aspect and become the "top" film company; this view was (now obviously) flawed in that the accelerating pace of tech-development would far outrun any effort to continue making money from one type of tech business.

Apple doesn't do that. Apple is a company that takes pride in making awesome products better, and selling them at a premium. As soon as demand for a certain type of product wanes, Apple will drop it. Look at the CD drive (superdrive on Macs): the moment people began talking about CD's being less useful, Apple decides to drop it entirely.

Now, onto the Ericsson argument: Sony began the joint venture with the Swedish company in order to capitalize on demand for a certain type of product. Inherent to every JV is an aspect of difficult managerial maneuvering due to the business having dual equity interests from its owners. This means that forward progress - ie, innovation, new products, new designs, etc - is hard to achieve. Apple doesn't suffer from that problem, and actually makes an effort to avoid stagnation in its product lines.

What will kill Apple is something totally different - I believe that first, some mistakes will have to happen at the leadership level to make the firm more susceptible to operational or creative mistakes. Then we can begin to talk about what will be its downfall.

For now, though, nothing is really stopping this company from continuing to make money. There's a reason investors keep pouring cash into the firm, and it isn't because investors are stupid (hint: they aren't).

Ahem... I digress lol.

solo118 said:

Those were the days when we had to attach cameras to our phones


Image

Crazy idea back then, but I loved the T68.... it was one of the first at&t phones once it went GSM from TDMA. I had it on day one, what a disaster that roll out was.

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Yes. Original ATT ( attws). Those were the days. Very difficult transition from TDMA to GSM for the original ATT.

The "new" att is all small letters.

shenan1982 said:

You actually make valid points.

Funny part is if Apple continues to ignore their user base, they'll end up the same way Sony did.... having no relevance in the industry besides a story of their past.

I hope Apple wakes up and starts listening to what people want. Smaller screens, bigger screens, higher-res screens, longer battery. HTC and Samsung are listening, which is why they're still growing globally and Apple is stagnant on a global sales perspective.

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Whilst Samsung may have grown significantly in the mobile space HTC aren't doing too well at the moment.

Personally Apple don't have anything to worry about IMO.

This comparison makes absolutely no sense at all. Why not compare Apple to Samsung of 2005-2008? Or the Siemens of 1999-2003? Or the Motorola of 2001-2006?

All are useless.

vito said:

Whilst Samsung may have grown significantly in the mobile space HTC aren't doing too well at the moment.

Personally Apple don't have anything to worry about IMO.

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Have you been to Asia lately, specifically China, Taiwan, Philippines, and Hong Kong? HTC most certainly is alive and popular as they have a ton of Asia-only models that people there love. I was in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong several times in the last 2-3 months, and everywhere you go it's HTC and Samsung, I think I may have seen less than a handful of Apple iPhones the entire trip. This has changed drastically over the past 2-3 years when Apple was so coveted there that resale values often were higher than our US prices.

I'm sorry to say but I disagree with you about Apple having nothing to worry about, that's a very closed-minded, US-centric view and opinion, and unfortunately the future of the mobile industry isn't driven by the United States. We'll likely always have Apple in some form, but it's not going to be like the past 5 years...

gadget123 said:

Post 2010 are they the Sony Ericsson of the 2000'? Challenging Samsung, working on good camera phones and software and music players like Ipod similar to Walkman? SE always had great phones but smaller screens and some features missing from Samsung yet they sold fast and had a high price tag.

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I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. SonyEricsson made horrible phones and consumer devices, and they still do. The UIs were clunky. The materials were cheap and plasticky. The processors were underpowered, even for their dumbest dumphones. And they didn't adhere to standards at all. Whereas Apple does their own thing, they still retain compatibility with established formats (you can open MP3s on iPods, boot windows on Macs, etc.). By contrast, only recently are you able to do these things on Sony consumer devices. ATRAC, Memory Stick, MiniDisc and UMD are all examples of complete failures that Sony doggedly pushed to the bitter end.

I can't blame them fully though. Sony's major problem is that they are a conglomerate, and part of that conglomerate is an entertainment production empire. As a result, Sony is constantly at war with itself: The consumer products industry wants to make great products that play videos and music, but the entertainment production part of the business wants to heavily restrict and control how users access digital media. So, Entertainment has DIRECT influence over how the consumer products are made... at the expense of the consumer.

This is a key issue that hampers Sony's ability to make good things. Apple doesn't have this problem. which makes them fundamentally different.

TC03 said:

This comparison makes absolutely no sense at all. Why not compare Apple to Samsung of 2005-2008? Or the Siemens of 1999-2003? Or the Motorola of 2001-2006?

All are useless.

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If you look at Apple as a US product, one might say they're quite successful, they're continuing to sell phones and remain popular. As a percentage, they haven't grown much in the last year or two in the US. They can remain perfectly healthy if they are able to maintain their presence in the US.

However, if you look at them on a global stage, they're weak, they've lost the appeal they once had, and have all but relegated themselves to non-existence. The only global market where they still have a strong presence is Europe, but even that presence is shrinking by the day. If you look at Asia, the middle east, and central and south America, Apple is tiny. Android dominates. You can complain that comparing apple to android isn't right all you want, but that's the way the consumer market sees them. When you look over someone's shoulder, the first thing you notice is iOS or Android, not HTC or Motorola.

I think Apple needs to rein the focus market into just the US, and let the grey market handle the rest of the world. At this point, the world gave iPhone a chance and Android won. Apple still has a golden opportunity to seize back critical marketshare in the US.

MLAM said:

The K and W Series of phones I had were quite stable in software.

The K800i I had (Same phone as James Bond in Casino Royale) had the amazing Xenon flash on it too! So did the Satio which I had too.

The Satio did take great pictures at the time and still holds it own now but the lens technology is showing its age by the time I sold it.

I'm a little surprised no smart phone has got a Xenon flash yet but I expect it would kill the battery in no time if you used it a lot.

Click to expand...

No, the software was always buggy, I worked in the industry at the time and knew people who ran the SE Call Centre. Software was always buggy and sometimes never rectified, (Xperia X1 anybody)?

Even the K800i (paid to be in the movie, not because it was premium) was a good camera with mediocre phone software.

The software is what killed SonyEricsson, plain and simple.

shenan1982 said:

I think Apple needs to rein the focus market into just the US, and let the grey market handle the rest of the world.

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The fact that a grey market even exists internationally negates your argument. If no one outside of the US wanted iOS devices, a grey market would be unnecessary.

shenan1982 said:

If you look at Apple as a US product, one might say they're quite successful, they're continuing to sell phones and remain popular. As a percentage, they haven't grown much in the last year or two in the US. They can remain perfectly healthy if they are able to maintain their presence in the US.

However, if you look at them on a global stage, they're weak, they've lost the appeal they once had, and have all but relegated themselves to non-existence. The only global market where they still have a strong presence is Europe, but even that presence is shrinking by the day. If you look at Asia, the middle east, and central and south America, Apple is tiny. Android dominates. You can complain that comparing apple to android isn't right all you want, but that's the way the consumer market sees them. When you look over someone's shoulder, the first thing you notice is iOS or Android, not HTC or Motorola.

I think Apple needs to rein the focus market into just the US, and let the grey market handle the rest of the world. At this point, the world gave iPhone a chance and Android won. Apple still has a golden opportunity to seize back critical marketshare in the US.

Click to expand...

What, I'm not complaining about comparing Apple/iOS to Android, I'm complaining about comparing Apple to completely different companies in completely different eras.

scaredpoet said:

The fact that a grey market even exists internationally negates your argument. If no one outside of the US wanted iOS devices, a grey market would be unnecessary.

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You may want to educate yourself better. That's entirely inaccurate.

shenan1982 said:

Funny part is if Apple continues to ignore their user base, they'll end up the same way Sony did.... having no relevance in the industry besides a story of their past.

I hope Apple wakes up and starts listening to what people want. Smaller screens, bigger screens, higher-res screens, longer battery. HTC and Samsung are listening, which is why they're still growing globally and Apple is stagnant on a global sales perspective.

Click to expand...

Wholeheartedly agree!!!

I know they are making boatload of money and have humongous amount of cash in bank but it does not take too long for tide to turn (or may be it has already turned?)... They must tweak their strategy a little...

shenan1982 said:

You may want to educate yourself better. That's entirely inaccurate.

Click to expand...

Educate me, then. Explain how, when the market for Apple products has allegedly collapsed internationally, a grey market exists to supply said markets with same products, especially when mainstream sales channels exist.

shenan1982 said:

If you look at Apple as a US product, one might say they're quite successful, they're continuing to sell phones and remain popular. As a percentage, they haven't grown much in the last year or two in the US. They can remain perfectly healthy if they are able to maintain their presence in the US.

However, if you look at them on a global stage, they're weak, they've lost the appeal they once had, and have all but relegated themselves to non-existence. The only global market where they still have a strong presence is Europe, but even that presence is shrinking by the day. If you look at Asia, the middle east, and central and south America, Apple is tiny. Android dominates. You can complain that comparing apple to android isn't right all you want, but that's the way the consumer market sees them. When you look over someone's shoulder, the first thing you notice is iOS or Android, not HTC or Motorola.

I think Apple needs to rein the focus market into just the US, and let the grey market handle the rest of the world. At this point, the world gave iPhone a chance and Android won. Apple still has a golden opportunity to seize back critical marketshare in the US.

Click to expand...

This is quite possibly the least "educated" post I've read on this forum lol.

A company that just financed $17 Bln. in debt and is between the #1-3 largest firms in the world just decided to do a product launch simultaneously across US and select international markets (read: China), but wasn't reasonable enough to ask some data analytics company or some management consultancy whether their products have a future overseas?

You're saying that Apple is making a mistake by investing in foreign markets, where their products sell out despite import tariffs?

You're saying that in China, where people have sold their own kidneys to afford Apple products, there isn't going to be continuing demand for iPhones and iPads and iOS stuff?

Hey, who knows, maybe I'm wrong!

Fedmahn Kassad said:

This is quite possibly the least "educated" post I've read on this forum lol.

A company that just financed $17 Bln. in debt and is between the #1-3 largest firms in the world just decided to do a product launch simultaneously across US and select international markets (read: China), but wasn't reasonable enough to ask some data analytics company or some management consultancy whether their products have a future overseas?

You're saying that Apple is making a mistake by investing in foreign markets, where their products sell out despite import tariffs?

You're saying that in China, where people have sold their own kidneys to afford Apple products, there isn't going to be continuing demand for iPhones and iPads and iOS stuff?

Hey, who knows, maybe I'm wrong!

Click to expand...

Clearly you're using examples from years past to predict the future. Look how well that worked out for Blackberry.... or Nokia...

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scaredpoet said:

Educate me, then. Explain how, when the market for Apple products has allegedly collapsed internationally, a grey market exists to supply said markets with same products, especially when mainstream sales channels exist.

Click to expand...

You don't travel outside the US much apparently. You'd realize how silly your statement is if you did. There are official and unofficial marketplaces for FORD automobiles in Seoul too, but do you think FORD has any marketshare there whatsoever? Absolutely not.

I'm so tired of those people who have never actually left the country talking about how the whole world loves iPhones because Apple posts pictures of people lined up in front of a store in Shanghai. It makes me ashamed to be an American because of people like you who make baseless claims like this. If you'd ever been to Korea or the Philippines or Thailand or Japan or CHINA or Argentina or Brazil or Australia or most of Europe you'd not have made the comment you did, because you'd know how absolutely dried up the world iPhone market has become. People in the rest of the world use Android phones.

shenan1982 said:

Clearly you're using examples from years past to predict the future. Look how well that worked out for Blackberry.... or Nokia...

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You don't travel outside the US much apparently. You'd realize how silly your statement is if you did. There are official and unofficial marketplaces for FORD automobiles in Seoul too, but do you think FORD has any marketshare there whatsoever? Absolutely not.

I'm so tired of those people who have never actually left the country talking about how the whole world loves iPhones because Apple posts pictures of people lined up in front of a store in Shanghai. It makes me ashamed to be an American because of people like you who make baseless claims like this. If you'd ever been to Korea or the Philippines or Thailand or Japan or CHINA or Argentina or Brazil or Australia or most of Europe you'd not have made the comment you did, because you'd know how absolutely dried up the world iPhone market has become. People in the rest of the world use Android phones.

Click to expand...

Ford is gigantic in China.* (Also see Ford's 2012 annual report; a full 18% of their profit came from the APAC region)

On the topic of past examples: so what? It's all we have to go on. Your use of Nokia and BBRY here is invalid because both companies suffered leadership issues that made it clear to analysts ahead of time that the companies would be likely to underperform. Nokia and BBRY have been shorted for a long, long time - their demise was not some kind of surprise.

And why would Apple care about what other people are currently using? They're in the business of selling stuff, and people using Android phones just means more potential conversions. Apple has the R&D capability to develop newer and better technologies, but they still don't release everything at once because people will still pay for their underpowered device**.

And here's a factoid for you: Android is a completely profitless venture. iPhones are not. What people are using doesn't matter - all Apple sees is a gigantic unsaturated market, wealthy enough to buy its products.

The iPhone is a more demanded product than certain household staples. No other tech device - let alone some phone, and certainly not an Android phone - comes even close to having such high consumer demand.

Lastly, since you're talking about arbitrary points like "traveling" and "US-centric views," here's a good qualitative bit for you: the Korean market is known for preferring high-end luxury goods as opposed to substitutes***. Guess what the iPhone is? It sure isn't a substitute.

I rest my case. All further dissidents should go study the latest AAPL 10-Q and compare it to any other company you like. The fact is that Apple isn't going anywhere for a long, long time.

*I worked in China for a while working with MNC consulting. Ford is not exactly a small entity there.
**I now work in equities research. This is a known strategy of the Apple creative/development team.
***Random Google evidence: http://bir.brandeis.edu/bitstream/h...Good Obsession in South Korea).pdf?sequence=1

shenan1982 said:

I'm so tired of those people who have never actually left the country talking about how the whole world loves iPhones because Apple posts pictures of people lined up in front of a store in Shanghai. It makes me ashamed to be an American because of people like you who make baseless claims like this. If you'd ever been to Korea or the Philippines or Thailand or Japan or CHINA or Argentina or Brazil or Australia or most of Europe you'd not have made the comment you did, because you'd know how absolutely dried up the world iPhone market has become. People in the rest of the world use Android phones.

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I'm struggling to answer this idiocy without becoming too personal.

You are obviously a prime example of the "insular American" who has no idea of the world. If you think the iPhone has no market in the countries you mention you are not only insular, you are also ignorant.

"People in the rest of the world use Android" is probably one of the most arrogantly ignorant statements I've read here, you are a disgrace to the concept of intelligent Americans.

I agree that Apple's presence in Europe is thinning from what I see day-to-day. More and more people are using Android phones.

The thing is, Android phones offer like 85% of the quality of the iPhone at like 60% of the price (or less). There's much better value for money by going with Android.

Take a look at the top-selling smartphones on Amazon Germany: 8 of the top 10 are from Samsung. The other 2 are from Huawei.

The first Apple product in that list is on page 3. Apple isn't even in the top 50.

In the UK, 9 of the top 10 are from Samsung. The other one is the HTC One.

Apple does better in the UK. Their top model is #12 (surprise, surprise its their lowest end models that do best - iP5 16GB at #12, iP4 16GB at #13).

Apple's prices were set at a time when the iPhone was much better than Android, and they could demand an appropriate price premium. These days that quality gap has shrunk, but the price gap hasn't.