MAC to PCs PC to iPhones... Apples journey to Network externalities

Who is going to be MAC to Apples PC in the portables business?  Yea its hard to get your brain around but it that is why Apple has spent so much time and effort courting the development community. (Near free killer development tools and a cheep way to distribute)

 Apple wants to be the company that when choosing a phone potential customers say... "I know MotoNokiaHTC makes a great phone but All the useful applications are on the iPhone" about.  

Apple wants the power of the "Network Externality"  They have aimed their considerable marketing arsenal at all of us and fired their message in every way possible that we want an iPhone, that having an iphone and the internet in your pocket is indispensable. 

 IF I say IF Apple can succeed in getting 50-100 million iPhones into the market AND IF one (OR several) of the developers working on creating applications for the iPhone actually create something that works really well then ....  Then ... 

Everyone will have compelling reasons to use an iPhone because the Network Externality will make the product the product you use simply because it is the one everyone else uses.  

Remember when you (or your grandfather) didn't buy a mac in 1999?  It was because they sucked Outlook or Word or Excel (or some other program) only ran on a Microsoft PC, you had to share files and BLAM no choice your buying a PC.  

Apple currently has as much as 25% of the US smartphone market share.  Their share of this market and the size of the market are going to grow explosively over the next few years (demographics get over it).  

Think about it... Think ahead to the time you will be able to pick up a version of the  iPhone for $50 bucks at the mall kiosk.  There are other phones and they will gain in functionality but really who would not buy the phone that has 2500 (as of this morning) applications you can download?  Apple is going to be one of the dominant players in the smartphone business and  to complete my metaphor Apple/iPhone is PC because it will hold a dominant position in this product category for a very long time. 

iPhone IS the mobile internet

Engadget who has gone out of their way to mention they had no intentions of writing any proprietary access programs for mobile devices today announced an iPhone specific Application/browser as a result of research that showed that more than 95%! of all mobile traffic to their site is iPhones (iTouch count too).   LINK

Interweb smack down

Given the current crop of mobile computing devices and even some of the ones in near term development.  who will make the product people are more or even AS likely to use on the interWebs as the iPhone? The top Win Mobile phone is the HTC Touch Cruise and by my feeble math the TOTAL use share on Engadgets web site of all Win Mobile phones represent only 1%.  Maybe Microsoft is emulating Apple by being the “The super-small market-share guy”

Network Externalities are the path to dominance in a format war (see evil empire vs. Apple mid 80s to …) and Apple is out to a huge early lead in the mobile computing marketplace, Blackberry notwithstanding.  Businesses and individuals will find the choice to use an iPhone easier as time goes on because it will do more than other phones just because it already does it.  There is no Technical reason Engadget could not build software optimized for another device but they won’t.  They won’t because there will be no reason to and the people buying a mobile computing device that want access to Engadget ( or any of the other gazillion iPhone accelerated web sites) will find that iPhone is the only one that gives them what they want.

Apple will dominate the mobile computing space, the questions are by how much and who will be the alternatives.  The only current promising player seems to be Android but not for a while.  WinMobile is DOA so Microsoft could (not really) give up and start over with a real competing product but that would be years away.  Blackberry is a wildcard clearly a great device but the lack of a real computing/browsing environment mean it cannot win longer term (unless they do he said humbly).

The competition has a little time the market will move slowly to iPhone but there could be 50 million on the street by the end of next year.  Remember Jobs pointed out that 1% of the 1 billion unit per year market by the end of 2008.  10% world wide or 100 million a year will not happen overnight but the forces that could lead to that conclusion are undeniable and very powerful.

MAC to Apples PC (Part 1 Why Apple is PC)

Who is going to be MAC to Apples PC in the portables business?  Yea its hard to get your brain around but it that is why Apple has spent so much time and effort courting the development community.  They want to be the guy that everyone says “I know (Fill in the Blank) is a great phone but All the useful applications are on the iPhone” about.  Apple wants the power of the “Network Externality”  They have aimed their considerable marketing arsenal at all of us and told us in every way possible that we want an iPhone that having an iphone and the internet in your pocket is indispensable.  IF I say IF Apple can succeed in getting 50-100 million of these things out there AND IF one (OR several) of these developers actually create something that works really well then ….  Then … Everyone will have to use an iPhone because it is then that the Network Externality says you will have to.  Just like when you didn’t buy a mac in 1999 it was because they sucked Outlook (or some other program) only ran on a Microsoft PC.  Apple currently has as much as 25% of the US smartphone market share.  Their share of this market and the size of the market are going to grow explosively over the next few years.  Think about it… Think ahead to the time you will be able to pick up a version of the  iPhone for $50 bucks at the mall kiosk.  There are other phones and they will gain in functionality but really who would not buy the phone that has 1046 (as of this morning) programs you can download?  Apple is going to be one of the dominant players in the smartphone business and Apple is PC because they will define the smart phone market for the next 10 years.