Microsoft asking, “How many Davids were there in David & Goliath?” (Read Here)

Comscore shows market share growth (Loss) for a quarter (Nov 2009 – Feb 2010) for all of the SmartPhone platforms. The big loser is Microsoft with a 21% loss, or as accountants would put it, a -21% gain, which translates to a 4% loss in the smartphone marketplace.

The clear winner in gain is the Android platform, with a gain of 5.2% in the overall market, which translates to almost a 240% gain in position in the same 3 months (from 3.8% mkt share to 9).

Well, let’s count:

More about UBUNTU – “Are you sure kids are using that instead of Windows? OK,
let’s give all those kids FREE Windows 7 and All the development tools that we
sell for thousands of dollars to corporations, YES FREE!!!

It’s like this, let me give you an example you would understand. If you want
the kids of today to grow up to be gamblers, you make a Disneyland in Vegas, you
give them free nights at the hotel, wait for 15 years (You have them associate
positive things with Vegas, and giving money… NO IT’S NOT LIKE GIVING MONEY IN
CHURCH!)”

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard, Microsoft (Even Apple) are giving away their
Operating systems for almost free (Read here)

Always remember and never forget:

                   “The only limit we need is that which limits anyone from setting limits.”

If you are like me, you buy any tech gadget that comes out. I always manage to find a way to support the economy, the company that comes up with an inferior first version etc. But I do enjoy getting exposed to the technology before most people, so that’s worth something isn’t it (I know what you’re saying, this is like someone that lost everything in Vegas, and comes out saying, “Well, I still got my health!!”

Be that as it may, I resisted buying an iPad. I actually got the email early to pre-order, and I even went through the process, then later cancelled it, I just thought to myself, “What the heck am I going to do with it?” it was going to be $800 thrown away (I have to get the 3G with the large capacity 🙂

Anyway, I am more of a believer of open technologies, so I am an Android kind of guy. Ever since I bought the G1 for my son (BTW, he loooooves it still), and then when I finally gave up on my TREO 755P (Still think it was a great phone), I have been in love with the Android platform. I think it is the future, or some semblance of the future. Apple, Microsoft, HP and others are spinning their wheels, while the new generation is going for everything that’s open.

I don’t think these companies learn from past mistakes. Apple lost a great big market share when the PC Market went open, because IBM messed up (Thanks IBM for letting Compaq creep into the market with superior clones and create a great demand for PCs). They lost again, when they let Dell slide into the corporate market with its “Order the way you want it, and we will make it like you want” strategy. Netscape fell into the “They love our product so much that they will pay what we want” strategy. Microsoft has too many things to talk about and everyone knows it.  This taught me that when you put a lot of hurdles (Hurdles can also be a high price for example $329 for Microsoft Office, ouch! Openoffice.org anyone?), and make things proprietary, you end up losing in the end. Who remembers the Betamax, the Lisa, 8-track tapes etc.

Sure Apple has a lot of following, and they are doing a great job with their interfaces, but most of the people buying are the Apple fans to start with. An article from PCWorld said that  nearly 3/4 that’s 75% of the buyers of the iPad during the pre-order and the weeks following were MAC users, and almost 67% had iPhones (The iTouch is getting cannibalized by the iPad, unless they release a 5″ version soon).

It’s so hard to get an iPhone app into the store that the sheer determination was the only thing that made it grow so quickly. But the priced apps are fading, mostly only the free apps are being downloaded. Considering that currently to get an application on the itunes App Store you need to get it approved by Apple, and there are several criteria, including competitors products, makes it less attractive to newer developers. While this is good for the quality of the available apps, it does limit creativity and push people away. Eventually people like “NO LIMITS!!”

I have a MAC along with the umpteen PCs that I have (I think it’s something like 7:1 now, not counting the 12-15 older desktops sitting in my garage). I have setup an Ubuntu on one of my older desktops, and I have to say, “I am impressed, Linux, you’ve come a long way baby!” I have just finished setting up a Chromium OS machine, I will start testing tomorrow, can’t wait.

So back to the iPad, there are some Chinese companies that have already released 7″ Android tablets, that are going for $100-$140 shipped, yes shipped!!! It has WiFi built in, it is not as robust as the iPad, but it is only $100, and it is still new, imagine what it will be in a few months. Of course, I ordered one, will be testing that as well.

Please don’t take me wrong, I am not one that can say Apple will fail, but I can say that it will not be operating at the full potential that it would if it were more open. Take a look at what Facebook did for the open cause, or rather what the open platform did for Facebook. How about Linux and Apache for the server industry? I wouldn’t ignore it, if I were in the position these companies are in.

I’ll say this again, “The only limit we need is that which limits anyone from setting limits.” Keep in mind, the U.S.A. grew this fast because it was based on this open souce model, of course with a dash of capitalism added as a catalyst for extra motivation.

Diran Afarian
Founder
NextEmployee.com

I  have been to the Lenovo website a few times (Deal site clicks mainly) to buy a computer. I have often just clicked back out. Whoever designed the ecommerce side of their site ought to be fired. Can anyone spell F-A-I-L !!!

Too bad I didn’t have this insight when I did my MBA project about IBM, I had to concentrate on the 1993 issues you were having for my report.

Be that as it may, when I get to your site from a link, there is no way (maybe no easy way) to see a picture of the (D&!*?#) notebook computer I want to buy. The first thing you see is the warranty crap.

Hey Lenovo, or IBM–BTW, I don’t know which genius (I’m being nice here) thought Lenovo would be a better brand to push than IBM, is beyond me. But that’s a whole different story in itself. I guess someone thought IBM is just too short to be a good brand? Maybe,  just maybe.

Anyway, send some people to Design 101, or better yet, Marketing 101. Tey’ll teach them that you’re supposed to put the ugly stuff (Like warranty, protection etc) at the end. One principle you need to learn about marketing and human behavior is this:
      – When is a person most likely to buy another product from you?
                   WHEN THEY HAVE JUST BOUGHT SOMETHING!!    
Does, “Would you like fries with that sir…” ring a bell? How about, “For $5 more we’ll send you another thiggamajiggy with free shipping if you decide now…” as all infomercials do. It’s called UPSELL!  Warranty is an up-sell, computer bag is an up-sell, junk that you don’t really need, but we make a lot of fluffy money on is an up-sell.

Mr Watson (yeah I know), if you were alive, you would send some of these genius online employees of yours to a couple of courses (or maybe fire them). Let them learn that showing pictures of the notebook computers from all angles might get someone’s mouth watering and get them to start the buying process, at least it won’t do something that the Warranty page will do, put them to sleep (Or aggravate them to the point that they go to your competitor and buy the notebook computer from there!!).

Just to let you know, FYI, because you need to know, to whom it may concern etc etc. I just had enough, and I went to the Dell site and bought myself a notebook computer, I even paid more, because the pictures showed such beautiful angles and detail that I just had to have it.

Now I will never know if your computer is better than the Dell. Unless our company decided to give me one, or I saw one in a store or?? I definitely will not come to your stale site and go through the process any more.

Oh yeah, this is my 5th notebook/netbook, I am a serial tech product junkie, not just a one product buyer. I also support the economy by being an early adopter of technology products, etc.

Mr Palmisano, you probably won’t ever read this, but it felt good for me to get this frustration out. If this was about my site, I would be extremely alarmed. I wonder how many more deals you have lost because of this backwards system of yours.  Maybe you know?

-Diran