One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds.
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er dusted;
The present eye praises the present object.
Troilus and Cressida, William Shapespeare
The emerging battle between RIM, Apple's iPhone and Google Android have all the classic hallmarks and of a true marketing melee. That’s great to see and instructive for all.
RIM’s Blackberry, for years, has made the market for smartphones, being the corporate darling for its ease of email use. How many times have you sat in a meeting, suddenly see the flashing light on your Blackberry go from green to red and feel the need to know and to answer?
Oh, and who did Blackberry pass on its leg around the track? Palm, which came late to smartphones. While Blackberry software and third party apps were not as robust as Palm and even though Palm had a huge installed base of users tracking their calendars, the functionality of its email system and the alignment with corporations won that race thumbs down, even though its first devices were black-and-white and clunky.
Now we have the iPhone, a cooler piece of hardware and software than the Blackberry. But not the winner out of the gate. The functionality and ease of use (my thumbs are just too big for the accurate and fast touch screen typing) do not match the Blackberry, limiting its ability to gain a broad base of users. Who bought the iPhone first? Consumers, the bedrock of Apple users.
Now it is getting interesting:
· Apple is preparing to launch a 3G iPhone and use Microsoft corporate email technology, a needed move to get corporate IT departments to sign on to iPhones.
o But you have to wonder how much this pains the purist in Steve Jobs?
· Blackberry is also preparing a 3G version and a better piece of hardware (bigger screen, better processor with a better browser).
· Google is licensing its Android operating system, based on Linux, to gain “screen share” on cell phones globally.
Google is operating under a totally different business model, fighting on only one battlefield. They are hardware-agnostic, freeing themselves of tactical hardware tactics, desiring share of eyeballs for its many apps. Google margins should be better. Their design focused on the visual look and click-throughs as they eschew plastic, metal and processors, leaving Nokia, LG, Motorola etc to the battle of the tiny boxes.
So the battle of flanks and enfilade goes to Blackberry and iPhone as they strive to win the minds and thumbs of both consumers and corporate users. The Blackberry Pearl and Curve are okay consumer phones, but they ain’t no iPhone.
When all things about performance are equal, great design wins. In a world of parity claims about superiority, whether it is soap or cosmetics or furniture or drugs, the cool-ness factor can win. Just ask Ideo.
The real and complex battleground here will go to the winner who must strive for superiority on both hardware and software. That is not an easy task. There are a thousand different cell phone sku’s in the mobile telephone category, but few offer truly differentiated in performance. Design becomes key. Remember the success of flip phones vs. candy bars? The first Razrs vs. everything else? Even the StarTAC. What makes this new evolution so interesting between iPhone and Blackberry is that it requires a skillful combination of both performance and design.
In the thirteenth century, King John gave a license to hold an annual fair in Donnybrook, outside Dublin. By the eighteenth century, it had become a huge two-week assembly for horse dealers, fortune-tellers, beggars, wrestlers, dancers, fiddlers, and food sellers. It was known for its rowdiness and noise, particularly for the whiskey-fueled fighting that went on after dark. The traditional advice for an Irishman going to the fair was, “Wherever you see a head, hit it.” Eventually the fair was closed by the Irish government in 1855.
I don’t know if you can combine the idea of a donnybrook with a Smartphone (since smart and donnybrook seem antithetical), but that it what this category is re-shaping itself to be.
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