Tuesday 20 November 2012

Platform Wars

Next up a session on Platform Wars, someone else I follow on twitter, Charles Arthur Technology Editor from The Guardian.

Written a book, "Digital Wars, Apple, Microsoft, Google and the battle for the Internet"
We've had the digital wars, Google vs Microsoft in search, Google won but may be anti-trust issues.

Apple vs MS in digital music. Apple won with iPod. Zune never took off. Came in far too late, just as iPhone coming in.

Google vs Apple vs MS in smartphones. Apple initially won, but huge growth in Android.

Google vs Apple vs MS in tablets. Too early to say who's won because a young market. Changed the way people thought about mobile computing. Tablets will overtake desktops soon, and eventually maybe laptops.

The next war is a Platform War.
Windows used to be only platform that mattered. Apple used to be an also ran. But apple hugely changed what it does and has expanded.
Smartphone will pass PC installed base in 2013.
Platform is a matrix, not just about OS. What about google+, twitter, Facebook, Skype, 3rd party apps. These all want to be on as many things as possible.
Success depends on users, how many, and how many £s per user you get.
Few users, more £s. Niche quadrant. Eg Windows phone
More users, less £s. Commoditised quadrant eg android
Few users, less £s Quadrant of doom eg RIM?
More users, more £s, Quadrant of Dominance eg Apple

Good picture of different apps and platforms



Monetization is a complicate interplay between desktop and mobile. Need to monetise at scale, but hard to do.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

No comments: