Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeOnyx
What I have realized, especially in the US market, is that most Americans usually only care about 2 things: Price and Brand.
For example, say you walk into a drug store for some headache medication. If Advil and the store brand comparable to Advil is the same price, you would more than likely choose Advil because of the brand even though they are exactly the same. In fact, many people are even willing to pay more for the Advil over the store comparable.
But keep in mind, that Amazon and Sony were small once too. If the bigger brand always win, how did they get their start? In 1998, a small search engine started to compete with Yahoo, MSN, and at the time, so many other huge search engine companies. Today, Microsoft and Yahoo both continue to get frustrated with the sure dominance of this company. Of course, this company is Google.
Or another example, when Mozilla came into the picture, Internet Explorer held 90% of the market share. Now more and more people are making the switch to Mozilla Firefox. Also remember, Apple iTunes were once the small underdog in the music industry. All they did was utilize a niche of creating an desktop application that made buying music and putting it on their device as simple as possible. Now they are a powerhouse.
Amazon were a lot more successful than Sony at the start with their eReader simply because Amazon had the niche of adding 3G which gave people the ease of buying the book directly on the device, despite the fact that Sony was in the industry first.
All I'm saying is never underestimate the underdog and a potential niche. Because as history as spoken, a good niche is sometimes all you really need.
Also, to respect to LCD screens. LCD with a backlight cannot support prolonged reading. How long can you stare at an LCD screen before you eyes start watering and hurting? Or how long can the battery on it last before needing a recharge? And to say that the iSlate will dominate the entire eReader industry is like saying the iPhone will dominate and control the entire cell phone industry.
I'm also curious to get your opinion on why you think the iSlate will take over? Do you believe that the Brand alone will be much more important than the price and will make everyone pay that much more to have the device? What about the iSlate do you believe will give it the competitive edge that other eReaders will not?
I am not trying to be condescending. I am just trying to keep an open mind and to satisfy my mere curiosity on the matter.
|
"Google" certainly is a great example for "new economy taking over from establishment".
Just some brief calculations: If I remember correctly, the global market for PCs is about 200 million units per year. Thats probably about $ 150 billions. Apple's market share [I'm to lazy to "GOOGLE" it
] probably is about 3%.
On the other hand, figures for ereaders are highly speculative. For example
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...47&postcount=1 states just $ 115 million (US market only) through October 2009. Amazon is claimed to have 90% market share in this article.
If that's true (personally I don't believe, that the market for eBooks/eReaders really is that small. And I don't believe 90% market share for Amazon - not even close), market for PCs (including Laptops, Netbooks and the likes of course) is 1000 times as big as the market for eReaders. Even including eBooks into the calculation, the picture is quite obvious.
For Apple, the iSlate will be the bridge to low end computing. Competing with netbooks and other units in the range of $ 300. Being Steve Jobs, I'd introduce 2 kinds of iSlates. A low-end-version aiming for significantly below $ 500. And a high-end-version in the range we've heard in various articles = about $ 800.
The "niche" of netbooks certainly is way bigger for Apple than the highly specialised niche of eReaders.