Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowl
Interesting stats, but realistically web traffic clearly doesn't equate to market share in any sense when you aren't discussing either websites or browsers, especially when you have far more valid figures such as handset sales etc. to compare instead.
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That's part of my point... I guess, at some stage in such a discussion, we'll get stuck because of "lies, damn lies, stats" however I think the phone usage is more appropriate as a measure of success. What I like about iPhone (where Android phones are getting stronger as well) is that it became a platform for applications. It's obviously much more than hardware now. 2 billion app downloads is seriously impressive, in my opinion. It's not mail+calendar in your pocket that changes the mobile market, it's been there for 10 years I think. But what Apple has done with iPhone is much more than that. Fair enough, it's not a "fart" app that revolutionize the industry however there are 70.000 apps out there so people are "using" their iPhones or iPod touches for things other than phone, e-mail and calendar. That's the whole point of being "mobile", isn't it? Doing a multitude of things with a hand-held device.
Last week, Palm announced their development program and their platform has become more open. Now it's free to develop and publish an app under certain conditions. They had to do that in order to have a chance to generate a momentum that resembles Apple's.
Some analysts are predicting that Android will be the #1 mobile platform as soon as 2012, thanks to Google, thanks to its availability on multiple hardware and its growing app market.
So, my criticism towards RIM was from this point of view. I just can't believe that RIM is not taking this seriously or they're snubbing the growth and the potential of the non-enterprise market. It's just strange...