Some time back, Master Jobst Fimil conceded defeat in the PC war. He said it out loud and people heard him. He said the PC war is over and Microsoft won.
Some time later, the iPod was introduced. Then the iPhone. Now, the iPad.
Lets look at that, shall we?
The iPod was not the first mp3 player. But soon after it was introduced it was the four-letter answer in the NY Times Crossword for “Portable music player.” The market for mp3 players isn’t just defined by the iPod; it is the iPod.
Later, the iPhone. Three years after it was introduced (2.5 years after it was actually for sale) it’s the #3 smart phone on the planet. If your company sells wireless handsets, you hope like hell those handsets are compared to the iPhone. That’s the best you can hope for, after all. Favorable comparisons aren’t really possible.
Here’s my big question for Nokia, who’s suing Apple for patent infringement:
If you, at any point in your history, had technology Apple needed for the iPhone, why, in the name of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, aren’t you selling some seriously wicked magical stuff?
So now Apple introduces the iPad – with an Apple A4 chip running the dogdamn thing.
Feminine hygiene jokes aside, in a few months the whole concept of portable computing will be a reflection of the iPad.
The iPad won’t have all the functions and features anyone could ever want, but it will have most of the functions and features that most people need. And those functions and features will work easily most of the time for most people.
Geeks will bitch about the lack of geek things. Nerds are being left behind. The iPad is not a toy for hobbyists. The iPad is a tool and a toy for the average computer illiterate asshole on the street. All the coders who successfully waited out the iPhone are going to do just fine on the new platform.
The day of the computer hobbyist being the leading edge of the computing market are over.
Likewise, the days of the home desktop computer are numbered.
Everything the average Joe on the street needs to do will be addressed by the iPad, once it can send to a printer, that is. Or when printed paper becomes obsolete.
When that happens, the desktop computer will be obsolete, just like land-line phones are nearing obsolescence now. Why bother with a desktop machine eating space in the house when you have the internet at hand on your iPad all the time anyway? Who’s going to buy Compaqs and Acers, when an iPad is the same price and better?
Why would a company maintain work stations when every employee has access to the company LAN or WAN with their iPads? Whither Dell in this scenario?
Likewise, why would the company buy you a Vaio when they can just subsidize your iPad? You don’t use all the power that laptop has to offer, anyway.
The desktop Windoze market runs on volume sales because their profit margins are razor thin. Lots of people have a home computer, a laptop for travel, a desktop at home, and a smartphone. What if you could replace all that with one device? What if that device was an iPad? It won’t take much to push HP, Samsung, and Sony out of the game, and Dell off the edge of the atlas.
At that point the only real need for desktop machines will be for developers, power users, and people who need major computing muscle and processor horsepower.
Guess where Apple already shines? High dollar horsepower and power user machines. If the other companies want to continue to sell computers, they’ll have to find something that makes their machines worth selling.
With laptop and desktop sales in the toilet, companies bailing out of the personal computer market because there’s no money in it – Apple will bestow, with miserly discrimination upon the chosen few reluctantly deemed worthy, the mark of acceptance: an OS X license.
Master Jobst Fimil ceded the PC War. That’s because he knew that not only was that war over, but it was no longer even relevant. Apple isn’t even in the PC War. The Mac is just the hub and the development platform for the next platform. Also, the Mac is a pretty nice little cash cow Apple can milk while they make all the rules for the next game. Apple’s “competitors” haven’t even figured out what the new game is yet.
The last time Apple licensed the OS, it was to try to catch up with Windows.
The next time, it will be the head-shot that finally kills Windows.
I give it two years. Three, maximum.
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