“Most, like Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung and LG, have opted for some sort of Android-based strategy,” Faulkner writes. “Still others like Research in Motion are back at the drawing board hoping to develop a new device that will generate more sales than yawns… With the iPhone opening the doors to corporate networks, RIM is scrambling. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Research in Motion comes out with a fabulous new family of devices. They’d still likely be number-three in the battle for mindshare among consumers and software developers.”
“My gut feel [when Apple unvield the iPhone in 2007] was that it was a game-changer, and now a full three years later, its ‘competition’ is still struggling to figure out what hit them” Faulkner writes. “There’s an old saying in the technology industry that if you don’t eat your own children someone else will. In this case, someone else did because of the inability of the entrenched competitors to take risks and innovate. Their management preferred to make minor changes around the periphery and milk their cash flows. But when real change arrived, they were the proverbial deer in the headlights.”
Faulkner writes, “There once was a huge industry for companies like DEC, Data General, Apollo, Prime and Wang. They were the hot growth stocks of their time but they disappeared very quickly, just like the dinosaurs. Nokia, Research in Motion, Motorola, and others are the minicomputer companies of the current era. They just don’t know it yet — nor do their investors.”
Full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ah, so it’s nice when the truth cuts through the FUD.
One thing is for sure: If the iPhone rumours do turn out to be true, it will crank up the heat even further in what is already a hotly competitive market, and companies like Nokia, Palm, Motorola, and Research In Motion could really start to sweat. – Mathew Ingram, The Globe and Mail, December 07, 2006
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow C.” for the heads up.]