If you look into newspapers and websites of any journal from United States you won’t miss the word I-phone. Believe me, there are more than 100 articles that was written by technology experts, Apple lovers and others in this business.
Would it become a hit? Million dollar question. But it’s easy to answer. It’s going to be flop of this century. I knew that technology lovers and apple fans would hit at me. I love to get hit by the folks who’re fans of technology, convergence, and Ofcourse Apple.
History says that convergence won’t work in the market. Make no mistake, technologist love it, press love it but public think other way. Is it possible for anyone to think of having a system that could do printing, scanning, taking photocopies so on and so forth from single device? But intelligent people from different companies did that and eventually got failed.
When we think about printing, it’s only HP that’s coming to our mind. XEROX is better in photocopiers. This clearly states that divergence is here to stay and Ofcourse it’s only going to be winning bet. After so many millions and billions in advertising, still few companies love for another battle in convergence.
Apple with its I-phone is doing another mistake, which they did almost a decade before with Newton. For those ladies and gentlemen, who doesn’t know, Newton has been launched as hand held computer. It portrayed its handwritten recognition as key technology in its product. Today there is still palmtop, but there is no Newton. Newton got destroyed because of convergence. Its hand written recognition did lot of mistakes in recognizing and hell lot of funny stories has been written on it. Finally Apple winds up its plan and ended in wasting its precious time and money in the process creating successful convergence product.
I-Pod – Why it’s hit?
I-pod is definitely not a first hard drive for music. But its first hard drive in the mind of people. Why it become instant success. Because it does only one thing in a perfect way- Digital Music. It had the capability of holding more music than any other MP3 players that could store music of just 2 CDs. Its classical example of divergence. It got enormous success because it is a specialist.
I-Phone – Why it could be flop?
With I-phone I’d be able to watch movies, send email, listen to music and Ofcourse make calls. Which battery in this world could last longer by accepting all these functions combined in a single device? I think this is going to be huge task for the folks at apple to come up with realistic answer. Already BusinessWeek has come up with an article that I-Phone is not supporting few email clients. Make no mistakes there are much more to come.
There is another danger for Apple, where they might be getting into competition with focused competitors of Smart phone makers viz., Research in Motion (RIMM) and Palm. Apple is increasing its competitors which mean it is directly or indirectly creating enemies which are not good for its business. Well, you’d argue, if I’m in market, I’d be having enemies, but creating unnecessary enemies are not good for business.
Whatz the lesson for startups from Apple?
Ofcourse we always learn lessons from others or learn from our mistakes. From Apple launch of I-phone, start ups must know that they must be focused and must work as a specialist than a generalist.
If you’re in everything, it means you’re in nothing. Not only that, your business could unnecessarily attract more competition and it could add enemies in the industry. This is definitely not good for start ups.
Start ups must try to focus on a particular technology that should be new and unique rather than converging everything and does one-stop solution which had the history of failure than success in this market. Rational thinking should hold high than emotional thinking. This is one of the most important lessons from this launch.
Convergence stays in newspaper columns, Divergence stays in the market.
I-Pod – Greatest hit of 21st century. I-Phone – Greatest flop of 21st century.
- APPLE – Mind Blowing Facts - January 26, 2012
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pretty lame.
guru: read it again, its hard to figure out what you are trying to say.
great to finally come across someone who doesn’t sit on the fence. but i’d whole heartedly disagree with the analysis.
It’s true that many device manufacturers have flirted with the idea of convergence quite unsuccessfully. But it would be naive to believe that people don’t want a multi-functional device…
What people don’t want is compromise. They don’t want their scanner to be limited in functionality because its got a printer attached to it. Customers want it all. And when convergent devices fail to deliver the complete experience – they fail.
I believe the iPhone will be a success. And the reason is it takes more than one or two features to make a product work. If we cut through the hype and take an objective view of the product, the iPhone delivers all three functionalities of a phone, a web browser and the iPod in completion. There is also a big factor of execution – be it the User Interface, the buttons, the scratch resistant glass, the widgets, the battery life and the tiny details which are often left in the background by many companies which have been painfully tackled by Apple.
I believe most products/companies get the overall idea right but fail to execute these tiny, oft ignored aspects which ultimately decide whether the customer will genuinely love using your product or whether its just another smart box in a sexy shell that will fail to live up to the hype.
Admire your guts to make this prediction. Time will tell!
One thing thatz becoming most common among companies across geners : they want to invent new technologies.. like this i phone wherein you can watch movies, send email, listen to music and ofcourse the basics of phone make and receive calls… good innovation – invention – technology. It will be good to have such facilities at one place – on your palm. But what is the quality of service that an end user is assured from the company / brand… I Phone will be sure hit if Apple invents – innovates – the way it services its customers. I Phone might not support some email clients – as an end user that is not a problem at all for me – coz it gonna take me very few seconds to create an email id which Apple I Phone supports – but what is the assurance on quality service from Apple to me if iam stuck with a problem ex virus. Apple I Phone makes me more dependent on it – ie. it is very important to me and equally iam important to Apple – – – by any chance is somebody in Apple there to realise this… in short – my point of view is I Phone will be a hit provided iam convinced on the quality of service that Apple would render to me… and need to mention GOOD THOUGHT from your side.. keep writing
what about RIMM is that not considered convergence? successful company and device