Bill Gates was right when he saw Google (not Apple) as a threat to MS hegemony, but for all the wrong reasons, becuase when he pronounced the threat the iPhone was not on the market just yet.
A large segment of the US population, and I guess it is a reflection of our capitalist world, look at the price of a product of service, not at the quality. The Android looks just as good as iPhone, but much cheaper, so it quickly rose to #1 smartphone OS.
The war for this highly lucrative and explosively growing segment between Apple and Google has laid waste to other cell phone makers, Noika and RIM (BlackBerry) as examples. Did you know that Microsoft was the leading "smartphone" maker in 2007? Don't hear much of that now do you?
Then came iPad.
Even though today the iPad is the leading tablet, the recent Droid selection is very high quality with some highly appealing features to certain customers.
What is critical to note is the astounding sums spend for iOS and Droid advertising, very likely more then MS gross income total, and certainly more then the 2012 POTUS campaign. MS is simply being drowned out.
So, who will likely buy the very late MS smartphone and tablets?
1. MS/Windows lovers
2. Apple haters
3. Cheapskates (mainly, even a $200 Fire too expensive).
(the others are too insignificant to list)
After years, decades, of the falling price of PC's, many have an expectation of really cheap computers, and poor performance (I did a custom built upper mid performance Win7 computer that costs $1500), and the opinion of MS is rather poor, and after Vista it only got worse. The now radical interface change in 8 will mostly make it worse, and the price they want is certain to make people run for the hills.
Bottom line, Android is the platform of choice for a majority of users. Not only can you get dirt cheap ($70 now), it has a huge eco system (Nook, Amazon, and Google of course), and for some its not Apple (nor MS).
Now you have Samsung heavily advertising a Google Chrome OS Ultrabook for the price of a Amazon Fire, $200.
What I expect to see is MS aligning closer to Apple, releasing iOS only products including MS Office to hold off Google deluge. This year has already seen a number of such actions by MS, expect it to increase.
A large segment of the US population, and I guess it is a reflection of our capitalist world, look at the price of a product of service, not at the quality. The Android looks just as good as iPhone, but much cheaper, so it quickly rose to #1 smartphone OS.
The war for this highly lucrative and explosively growing segment between Apple and Google has laid waste to other cell phone makers, Noika and RIM (BlackBerry) as examples. Did you know that Microsoft was the leading "smartphone" maker in 2007? Don't hear much of that now do you?
Then came iPad.
Even though today the iPad is the leading tablet, the recent Droid selection is very high quality with some highly appealing features to certain customers.
What is critical to note is the astounding sums spend for iOS and Droid advertising, very likely more then MS gross income total, and certainly more then the 2012 POTUS campaign. MS is simply being drowned out.
So, who will likely buy the very late MS smartphone and tablets?
1. MS/Windows lovers
2. Apple haters
3. Cheapskates (mainly, even a $200 Fire too expensive).
(the others are too insignificant to list)
After years, decades, of the falling price of PC's, many have an expectation of really cheap computers, and poor performance (I did a custom built upper mid performance Win7 computer that costs $1500), and the opinion of MS is rather poor, and after Vista it only got worse. The now radical interface change in 8 will mostly make it worse, and the price they want is certain to make people run for the hills.
Bottom line, Android is the platform of choice for a majority of users. Not only can you get dirt cheap ($70 now), it has a huge eco system (Nook, Amazon, and Google of course), and for some its not Apple (nor MS).
Now you have Samsung heavily advertising a Google Chrome OS Ultrabook for the price of a Amazon Fire, $200.
What I expect to see is MS aligning closer to Apple, releasing iOS only products including MS Office to hold off Google deluge. This year has already seen a number of such actions by MS, expect it to increase.
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