An Opening for Microsft and Nokia?
Nobody, including people inside Microsoft, would argue with the fact that Microsoft beat Google and Apple to the Mobile OS marketplace, but lags them both in terms of market share.
According to Wikipedia, the IBM Simon was the world's first smartphone and was released to the world nearly twenty years ago. This means that the smartphone market is yet another example of a market where mass adoption has lagged behind initial product introduction by 20-30 years. For the inventor audience this is important to note, because it shows that #1 - innovation takes time - and #2 - that being first is no guarantee of being number one in the market when mass adoption arrives.
Well, mass adoption in the smartphone market is now upon us.
The only question is - which operating system maker will dominate the golden years of the smartphone market?
Will it be Apple or Google?
Or do Microsoft and RIM have a change to counterattack and make themselves relevant again?
Invention does not guarantee innovation. Innovation requires that you create value above every existing alternative and that you achieve wide adoption. The reason we often see changes in the leadership of the marketplace of an emerging innovation is that often the market creator does a worse job than new entrants of adapting their solution offering for the evolving desires of the customers. New entrants generally see an opportunity to solve problems that the incumbents don't, and an create new value that the incumbent solutions don't deliver.
But can an incumbent react to newer entrants and rebuild momentum in the marketplace?
Motorola's revitalization in mobile handsets shows that a competitive response focused on leadership instead of reaction can in fact get you back in the game.
So can Microsoft do the same thing and steal share from Apple and Google in the smartphone OS market?
The answer lies in whether Microsoft can do a better job than Apple or Google (or even RIM) of understanding why people hate their current smartphones, while also anticipating:
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati