I just read the article, and I'm not buying it. First, I think his three platform theory is bs from whole cloth. You can manipulate any scenario to make it fit or not fit. For instance, his cars, trucks and motorcycles triad ignores vans.
And he doesn't understand RIM or MS. Users like BB because of push mail, but IT departments like them because of unparalleled ease of administration. I don't see a comptetitor out there even trying to match this, and not another platform capable of matching this, except maybe WinMob, if MS ever cares to try central administration. WinMob will survive until MS, not the market, decides to pull the plug. WinCE and PocketPC never really went anywhere, but they didn't go away either. MS has the money to keep WinMob going until MS decides otherwise. For my money, I'lll see it morph into using Active Directory for administration before it goes away. He's probably right about iPhones because Apple knows how to develop and promote stuff, and its devotees are happy to overlook limitations. If he is close to right, the Pre is dead because it will be too expensive. The Centro has a lot of popularity mostly because it is cheap. I'm not as smart as this guy, and I can't predict the future, but I'm smart enough to see that he can't either. On 01/12/2009 Eugenio Perea wrote: > If you're reading this, your next phone will almost certainly come from > one of these six categories: iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, > Blackberry, Palm Pre. > > You could be an outlier and go with something else, but we can probably > ignore the existence of Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Access > Linux, OpenMoko, PalmOS and all the other secondary or tertiary players. > > If Bob Cringely can be believed, and he usually can, only three of those > six categories have a chance of surviving with a reasonable and > profitable share of the market. You read him here: > http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081023_005500.html > > He's basically saying that there is space in the market for only three > platforms, with an 85-10-5 % distribution and that those will be: > iPhone with 85% of the market, Android with 10%, and Blackberry, Symbian > or something completely new with the remaining 5%. > > When I read that, back in October, I agreed completely. Now, I'm > thinking and hoping he may be wrong. I'm hoping the Palm Pre takes that 10%.
