Igor Foox wrote:
On 27-Apr-07, at 5:09 PM, Duncan Hudson wrote:
I think it's wrong to assume that every customer that FIC loses with the
Neo will go to the iPhone. First of all the iPhone's price point is
quite high when compared to the Neo, and will be out of reach for many.
Also see my point bellow about distribution channels.
I can afford an iPhone, my wife thinks I should get one, I just don't
want one.
Mostly because its closed.
It would be nice to get 802.11 & Bluetooth on the Neo though.
And, as I said before, "slip happens".
2) the iPhone may slip too.
Its all the rumor in the Apple world these days. We already know
that Apple has slipped its next OS release (10.5) because it put some
large number of its OS folks on the iPhone project, in order to get
it out the door.
It may, but they have a hell of a lot more at stake if they slip the
date. To pull developers of OSX, put them on the iPhone, and then
slip both dates? Their stock would tank unbelievably - I don't think
they'll slip the iPhone date.
It might not tank, but it would slouch.
They'll slip if it doesn't work right.
3) the iPhone is being sold (in the US) through AT&T/Cingular's
channels, which are deep and wide. Getting a "consumer" to the
iPhone will be easy. Getting that same individual to an OpenMoko
phone will be much more difficult.
Getting the 'average joe' to the OpenMoko unknown is going to be
difficult at best. Getting the 'average joe' to the OpenMoko when the
iPhone, et. al., are flooding the market will be next to impossible.
I don't know what FIC's plans are for selling the phone through mobile
providers in the future, but having 'average joe' buy the handset from
FIC directly is _the_ major barier to wider distribution in my opinion.
It would be nice if FIC would allow distributors **who know what they're
doing** to sell the phone, perhaps pre-loaded with a specialized app.
At least in North America, not many 'average joes' buy their handset
from anyone but the mobile carrier. So if FIC can get the phone
distributed through carriers, I can easily see them having pretty good
sales figures. Whether carriers would like to sell an open phone is an
entirely different story of course...
They won't, its toast in that channel.
But you can't really buy a boxed linux distro most places where you can
buy Windows XP/Vista or MacOS X, either.
4) Relax... you're not going to be able to add features to an iPhone.
OSX is unix based, so you and I both know that one will be able to add
apps to the iPhone. We also both know that for it to succeed in the
business environment they'll have to allow 3rd party apps.
Know that I want nothing more than for this device to succeed, but I
truly believe with each slip its success becomes more difficult.
There comes a point in the game when one just has to play the hand
that they're holding - whether it's a winning hand or not...
Agreed, and much like many others I'm eagerly waiting for the chance to
pre-order the first revision of the Neo.
Exactly >where< does one do this?
Jim
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