Windows Phone 8 to go head-to-head with Apple's iOS 6 - Phillip Elmer-Dewitt via Fortune ⇢

I feel like Elmer-Dewitt is writing an alternate reality scifi novel in this piece, where he makes it sound like Microsoft is still the worldbeater company of the last century, and Apple is the tiny upstart:

Phillip Elmer-Dewitt via Fortune

As predicted, Microsoft (MSFT) took the wraps off its next generation smartphone strategy Wednesday at the Windows Phone Developer Summit in San Francisco.

With Apple (AAPL) expected to introduce a new iPhone in conjunction with the scheduled release of iOS 6 this fall, the stage is set for a holiday face-off between these two long-time rivals in the battle for second place after Google’s (GOOG) market-leading Android smartphones.

Once again, Microsoft will be trying to stretch its lead on the desktop by taking a version of Windows into the mobile device marketplace. Apple, meanwhile, will be playing into its strength in devices that operate smoothly together in an easy-to-use software ecosphere.

Let’s clarify things:

  • Apple is the dominant player in smartphones. The iPhone revolutionized the industry, and Android (which is primarily Samsung) is ahead on unit sales, but Apple is catching up.
  • Yes, Samsung has sold more units: 43M to Apple’s 35M, with Nokia a distant third at 11.9M (mostly Symbian) and falling fast.
  • Samsung and Apple together get about 90% of all the profits in the smartphone market.
  • Apple posted record sales of the iPhone in q1’12, with 35M units sold and $24.4B in iPhone profits for the quarter, up from $10B a year before.
  • Microsoft is the provider of some Nokia phones, but Windows 7 is a tiny, tiny blip.

I don’t really see what Elmer-Dewitt is up to, but Apple is the clear market leader in the high profit laptop >$1000 sector. Who cares if Dell or no name manufacturers are selling bazillions of $450 laptops with $15 of profits?

Apple has the money and vision to create amazing products, and that’s not from selling badly designed, low-cost phones, laptops, or tablets.

And I am sure that Microsoft would love to perceived as going head-to-head with Apple. I think Windows 8 — what I have seen of it — looks cool, and might develop into a viable platform. But the characterization of Microsoft and Apple as side by side in the starting blocks for a race against Android is simply fiction, not analysis.

21 June 2012 9
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Notes

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