I had the privilege of attending a mobile conference today in Chicago, and was literally struck at the agenda. Surprised enough at its contents to gape awkwardly in my chair.
Throughout the day there was one single talk (out of more than thirteen), that was not dedicated to or centered around Android or iPhone. One. Blackberry, you get third place.
Listening to the events, it became even more lopsided. What came up in questions? What was mentioned in notes on future firmware releases? Android and iPhone, over and over again. Whatever the topic, there were two platforms.
This is not due to the conference being unbalanced; no one complained about the programming. It reflected people’s interests accurately and fairly. There was not even and minor grumbling, it was a complete non-issue.
But it gets even more pervasive. A fourth year CS major was presenting his app for the hackathon judging (a classic thing to watch, full of bleary eyes and unresponsive phones), and discussed when he had picked up his knowledge of iPhone programming. “I took a class last quarter, it was half iPhone and half Android.”
I’m no fan of Fox News, but to steal their tag line that does not sound very fair and balanced. Or is it?
Get it? Ballmer had it right. It’s about developers developers developers. Sure, iPhone and Android have the current advantage in terms of market size, and created apps. But that is transient, things can and always do change. Hell, in the last year Android has grown to be so strong that Apple decided they had to sue the whole damn thing to keep their crown.
What is not trivial is the mindshare among developers. What are they tinkering with? People coming up are learning iPhone and Android, not WebOS and Windows Phone 7 series. Either Palm, Microsoft, and RIM get some mindshare among the upcoming developers, or they will be gentrified to a slice of the older dev set that they have already acquired.
It’s time for them to put up or shut up. Microsoft and RIM have the dollars to build up their app offerings and acquire developers, Palm does not. Meaning? Palm is not only behind, but probably cannot catch up. Microsoft and RIM can catch up, or not. But it’s developer time in a big way.
Not to quote the internet, but developers or gt**.
The winners have already taken their places… Android and iPhone. Nothing else counts.
Like in the PC desktop world, there is room for one vertically integrated model (that's Apple) alongside one licensed OS model (that's Android). The two positions have already been taken, and are now established. That makes it impossible for anyone else to move in on that space.
Microsoft has already failed once with Windows Mobile Phone. It's going to fail again with WP7S. It's simply too late to market, and will not be able to dislodge the incumbents.
I love when people say its too late and impossible when talking about anything with the tech industry. Wake up Dave C. 2 years ago you would've said the same thing about google and android. Fact is WP7s is a game changer and has changed how people interact with their phone. You'll see once these phones start arriving in sept.
Here's the question (and this IS a question, not at all sure myself), is it a win if 100k “developers” who “took a course last quarter” all flock to Apple or Android? Some 70% of Enterprise Application developers code in .Net (less than 10% of them in web technologies). For the next generation of non-trivial phone applications, business class applications solving hard technology questions, will the “all iPhone all the time” mantra hold true?
If developers can flock to Android/iPhone in a matter of months, can't they also move on to “the next big thing” when that arrives? But yes, Palm's chances seem to get slimmer by the day…
For so many years I've heard that about WM – just you wait for the next version, it will walk all over the competition. Hasn't worked out like that for the last ten years, why should it now when there's even more competitors who've eaten WM marketshare?
What is “broadscape”? I keep hearing that term (or company?) thrown around amongst our developers. Is it a new techology, or a new device?
@Ned,
I believe Broadscape is 6G-throughput for mobile devices with a 0% drop-rate…not sure, but I’ve heard speed will be 10 GB/second. I don’t think it’s coming out for quite some time!
Ping,
I recently read a report (rumor?) that broadscape is in beta-testing now and that they are “supposed” to be a game changer for the social mobile media landscape. I guess we’ll soon find out.