Thank you for agreeing that your attempt at argument is based simply on "I think this, therefore it will be."
Nokia has been hemorrhaging smartphone market share, falling to 22.1% from for Q2 2011 from 40.9% in Q2 2010, and only teamed with Microsoft so it wouldn't have to invest in developing a next generation of Symbian. Similarly, Microsoft's share of the smartphone market has plummeted to 1.6% from 4.9% for the same quarter last year.
Meanwhile, market share for Android and iOS skyrocketed, with Android jumping from 17.2% to 43.4% and iOS climbing from 14.1% to 18.2%.
Kindly explain how Nokia and Microsoft can reverse that trend?
FIRST: As earlier stated im only looking at "the western (multi-platform/devices) world" (in lack of a better term). Im completely blind to the fact that BRIC will make up a substantial part of the market, and that they are likely to swing with cheap-cheap solutions (linux-based open-source sounds like a safe bet).
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Actually, it wasnt as i mentioned the convergence of platforms, out of which you should be able to read a few things. But no, i had no intention of providing you with a wall of text that you wouldnt read anyway. Why waste time?
1) Nokias Q2 is irrelevant. As is Q3, and probably total sales in Q4 (Q4 will give some indication though as they have ordered 2M devices - a very small number coming from nokia).
Why is it irrelevant? Because Nokia is in transition. In transition your goal is not to sell as many phones as you can NOW, but to do it "tomorrow".
Second, if i remember my Macrumors charts correctly, there was an MR chart posted not long ago (some time this summer) that showed how Nokia kept up with Apples (absolute) growth.
2) Nokia (or rather the consortium) will continue to develop Symbian. Development (of the Symbian OS) may have been outsourced (accenture contracted til 2018), and i doubt Nokia will put alot of effort in to Symbian middleware (how Nokia differentiate themselves from others running Symbian).
(MeeGo showed more promise as of late than Symbian though, but i understand Nokias decision to place their bets with Wp7.)
3) How the trend will be reversed? Well, its quite simple, and as earlier stated i wont go into any lengths making my case.
First of all, i somewhat agree with the CEO of fG: Android devices sell because there is no other alternative to iOS (that said, Nokia devices sold
very well up to 'the transition').
(i believe that is the picture MR ran earlier).
Second, Androids main appeal is to techies. Techies love Android, oft-times for the same reason they hate iOS. The average customer, however, does not care. Nor are they really consumer-aware enough to buy "the right product for them", and salesmen usually only care about maximizing profit for them.
Why is this relevant? Well, "techies" and not-so-techy-tech-using-people (not average joes) make up the early adopters. We are the hip'n'cool in the red corner, and the geeks in the blue corner. We may dominate now, but in 4 (or 7) years, our segments combined will only make up for a tiny fraction of the entire market, a market dominated by Joes (and Janes).
Given the issues of Android (not going into lengths), the high-margin strategy of Apple (assuming that apple values profit higher than market share), and the brand recognition of MSFT (and Nokia) i expect many of these Joes (and Janes) to turn to MSFT (rather than Android, which is the only real option here for the main bulk of users).
This turn, will in turn (no pun intended) be fueled by the
convergence of platforms (i.e. in near future a single platform will run everything from phones to pcs. ---- yes, platforms will still scale, and UI:s will be made to fit the devices).
Then:
* Many (read: most) users already have made substantial investments into the MS-platforms.
* MSFT has a global infrastructure and an enormous ecosystem running (iOS is small in comparison).
* Businesses rely heavily on MS.
Clearly, convergence of platforms will create clear incentives for home-users and businesses to choose MS-products outside of the traditional pc-market (cf. Apples strategy). Similarly, MSFT will offer businesses the necessary enterprise management tools
FINALLY allowing system administrators to take control of the security issue that is "post-pc devices". To think that MSFT would lose the business world to either Android or Apple in the coming years is naive, and this "asset" (along with dominance of the home-pc) is what separates MSFT from the rest.
-- That said, i do expect Apple to gain a larger share of both home-users and businesses. But i do not see the combined share (across platforms/device types) going over 15% (which would be huge for Apple) --
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Apple can only target a limited market segment. Their segment is packed with early-adopters. As result, Apple will have a hard time maintaining market share as smart phones becomes a commodity (they will however maintain profitability).
Apple will benefit from their recent success and see increased sales of
computers. All in all, i see them going over 10% in OS figures, with laptops dominating.
For pads they will be able to dominate somewhat longer than for phones. Estimates are tricky, as shown by various forecasts by analyst firms. If we go by my 2018 figure, we need pads to start becoming commodity by 2014 at least, with saturation a few years later. The 2015 figure is based on "start" around 2013 (Q4 2012), and faster saturation (not counting real laggards).
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Android is Android (cant be bothered to go into detail). Second, it seems as if Google's bet on light devices is not going to rake in any money, at least not in what we here call the western world. Losing that end, they have a hard time benefiting from the convergence of platforms (something both Apple and MSFT can capitalize on).
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To the average Joe (and business) MS-products will be (or appear to be) a better choice. The market growth will be dominated by Joes. My bet of MSFT rise, is really just the bet of Androids demise. I don't see that Google has enough going for them, and i'm not even sure if they have time to turn things around.
Nokia is king of volumes. With Nokia on board MSFT will (have to) push tons of devices, meaning MSFT will (have to) open up sales at all price points. Luckily enough, Wp7 started its journey with "old hw". Second, with optimizations it can probably run well on "even older hw". Thus, it is unlikely that they will have any real problem providing the user with a nice UX regardless of price points, and with MSFT likely to enforce tight requirements (now on a tier basis) issues of fragmentation (that Android are suffering from) can be avoided.
(Similarly, MSFT to my knowledge has a tighter grip on its market than Google has, allowing for better quality).
(MSFT also has Xbox, and the benefit from supporting frameworks (and integration with Kinect etc.) already used by game devs. Not that i care much for games on mobiles, but some obv. do).
Ok, im tired. Cant be bothered to say more. You fill in the blanks yourself.
p.s. as for MSFTs market share people are not buying windows mobile (as it has reached EOL). This accounts for the drop. WM != Wp. Very simple. (What you should've asked was: Why is Wp7 so small and not growing very fast. To that i'd respond: Wait and see, Mango is just around the corner. Nokia will start pushing volumes in Q1-Q2 (2M devices in 1 month is far from considered pushing volumes to Nokia).
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12.5 billion. Ouch.
Well at least it's better than 8.6 billion MS paid for LOLSkype.
On the patent front I don't really think this effects Apple much. They are already being sued by Motorola over patents, so Motorola's patents are already "in play".
The patents are just changing hands from one entity that's hostile to Apple, to another entity that's hostile to Apple.
Unless Google disbands the hardware team, I wonder what is the reaction of Google's partners right now. Formerly a partner, now a competitor.
That tale kind of sounds familiar doesn't it...
No biggie. You just keep entities separate. This is old stuff to the industry.
8.6 billion!!!! why on earth would anyone by Skype for that much when they can just develop and system/product, like Skype, but cheaper?
Do Skype have patents or something to stop a company from making a similar product?
a) user-base.
b) brand recognition
c) of course they have patents.
p.s.
Why do you think Mark Zuckerberg is so rich? why on earth would anyone by (sic!) Facebook for that much when they can just develop and (sic!) system/product, like Facebook, but cheaper?