Android Gains (and Palm Loses) Market Share

Here’s the rundown: Google gained a huge 2.7 percent of the market, moving from 2.5 percent in September to 5.2 percent in December. Meanwhile, Palm fell massively from 8.3 percent to 6.1 percent over the period. Both RIM and Microsoft lost one percent of market share, with RIM dropping from 42.6 percent to 41.6 percent, and MS from 19 percent to 18 percent. Apple gained 1.2 percent overall, jumping from 24.1 percent to 25.3.

via venturebeat.com

Interesting numbers…looking at this I realized I’m already working from a unfounded assumption that the mobile battle is 100% Android vs. iPhone, but there are so many more players when you step back to think about it.

It seems like the key thing that needs to shake out is Apps — what and how many platforms will ultimately attract developers — but aside from that, mobile world can probably support multiple platforms for some time to come.

If you’re a Blackberry or Palm partisan, for instance, I doubt you’re going to see an explosion of apps, but you might already have good enough stuff built in; Microsoft users are probably most worried about extending Outlook and Exchange to their phones and don’t need thousands of additional apps.

Of those mentioned, I think Palm is perhaps in the most trouble unless they get a killer app ramped up soon. Ms. D loves her Palm (nee Treo) for reporting tasks, messaging, its connectivity to Palm Desktop, and its brick like battery-life. Most of that Treo-ness was designed out of the Palm Pre series, unfortunately, so it’s not like she’s got a direct upgrade path from Treo to Pre. (Nobody is supporting Palm Desktop anymore, which gives me headaches trying to help her connect and sync.) So her next step is a question mark — potentially an iPhone, if it moves from AT&T, or some sort of Android that catches her eye down the road.

Posted via web from iTodd Central

February 10, 2010 · Filed Under Apple, Microsoft

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Apple: The 10 Percent Solution

This is big news from AppleInsider: Apple snags 10 percent of U.S. retail notebook sales in March. And it speaks to something that I’ve said in the past in my blogging (and, it seems, have lost forever to the ether, thanks to my habit of changing blog software too often). 10 percent is the sweet spot for Apple. And you can see it in their numbers — this past quarter, Apple went over $7 billion in revenue for the quarter — a number that’s a little higher than the company’s annual revenues back when Steve Jobs took over the company in 1997.

That’s an annualized revenue level of an extraordinary $28 billion — a number I derive by looking up the Q1 2007 results of over $7 billion and then cleverly “annualize” by multiplying it by 4.

Microsoft’s revenue last year: $44 billion. Sony’s: $66 billion. Apple is gaining.
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May 12, 2007 · Filed Under Apple, Mac, Microsoft

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Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye

Over at ComputerWorld, writer Scot Finnie has been working on a three-part series exploring the possiblities of using a Mac for his day-to-day computing instead of a Windows Vista system. His conclusion is right there in the headline of the third part of that series: Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye.

After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it with my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear. I’ve struggled to sort out my gut feeling about Windows Vista (see “The Trouble with Vista”), but the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss. While I continue to work with Windows XP and Vista on a number of other machines, I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.

Oddly, my “experiment” has been the opposite in my attempt to use a PC notebook at home (and for writing a book) while using a Mac on my desk at work.

What I’ve come to realize is how tied my business already is to the Macintosh. Our entire accounting system is based around MYOB AccountEdge Network Edition, so that the bookkeeper, sales manager and I all have access to invoices and statements.

February 9, 2007 · Filed Under Apple, Mac, Microsoft

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Well, I Suppose…Technically…

Over at iPod Hacks they have a fun little entry called 10 Years Ago Today: Steve Jobs Returns To Apple. OK…back in February 1997, when Apple bought Next, I guess technically Jobs was brought into the company as a member of the executive committee. (It was also announced that Woz was brought in as a consultant…not sure what ever happened with that.) It’s said that Steve was enamored most with all of the Apple eMate, the Newton-OS based education computer that he then decided to kill when he took over as “iCEO” and chairman of Apple’s board in the summer of that same year.

(To this day, the eMate remains an interesting and unmatched idea, IMHO, with nary a Mac OS X-based portable yet able to rival its portability and single-purposed usefulness. In the odd way that they do, journalists seemed to cling to their eMates long after they were pretty much impossible to work with for compatibility reasons. But their extreme portability, rugged design, long battery life and reliance on solid-state memory — meaning near instant on and off — would still be a handy item to have in a newsroom. Even the damn handle makes sense for reporters. But I digress.)

February 7, 2007 · Filed Under Apple, Jobs, Mac, Microsoft

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