Apple Claim Chowder: Evolutionary Or Revolutionary

With an Apple Event fast approaching, I’m reviewing critiques of past Apple Events to see how accurate they were. Turns out, not very. Critique is needed and welcome. Repeated errors? Not so much.

Evolutionary Or Revolutionary

The iPhone and the iPad have received a lot of criticism for being evolutionary, not revolutionary. I take strong exception to this sentiment. Apple’s iPhone and iPad — which are only seven and four years old, respectively — have been about as revolutionary as tech can get.

Before And After

From 1906, to 1956, to 2006, we went from the horse to the car to the airplane. However, as the photos below demonstrate, the way we read, entertained ourselves and communicated, while waiting to ride in the horse, the car and the plane, remained largely unchanged…until the iPhone arrived in 2007.

1906

1956

2006

Subway

Convergence

Further, look at the two photos, below, showing the multiple tasks that we can now accomplish with the aid of a single device.

photo.php

Update

Inevitable

Finally, perhaps the critics think that this is no revolution at all; that this is all simply the inevitable result of the march of progress.

Hardly.

Thousand

Android.before.iPhone

Jobs.buttonphones.2007

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. ~ John F. Kennedy

Critics think Apple’s products are evolutionary? I beg to differ. And reality begs to differ too. They’re as revolutionary as it gets.

An Attitude Of Ingratitude

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. ~ Tecumseh

There are (at least) two reasons why we don’t appreciate the significance of the iPhone/iPad revolution.

First, change seems to come very slowly when we’re looking forward but very rapidly when we’re looking backward. The iPhone was a leap. The iPad was a leap. Some acknowledge that they were revolutionary but claim that everything since has been evolutionary. I disagree.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. ~ Bill Gates

Sometimes, evolutionary can be revolutionary too. During the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, personal computing improved at breakneck speed. The changes were gradual and iterative but they came so rapidly, one after the other, that the effect was to change everything in a very short period of time. The same thing is happening in mobile, today.

Big things start small. ~ Hiten Shah (@hnshah)

Big things do indeed start small. But they don’t stay small for long.

The second reason we don’t appreciate what we have is because we’re an ungrateful lot.

Human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. ~ Aldous Huxley

    It’s been years — considered a long time in tech — since Apple delivered a “mind-blowing” product that made a cultural dent, some say, harking back to the iPad in 2010 and iPhone in 2007. ~ Jon Swartz, USA Today, 4 October 2012

Seriously? “It’s been years….” You mean it’s been, like TWO years before that article was written and FOUR years before today, since Apple changed everything. All over again? Geez, what a bunch of slackers they are.

The discontented child cries for toasted snow. – Arabian proverb

All this ingratitude reminds me of a joke:

    A woman was driving down the street in a sweat because she had an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up toward heaven, she said, “Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place, I will go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life and give up sex and tequila.” Miraculously, a parking place appeared. She looked up again and said, “Never mind. I found one.”

3d clown - puppet, juggling with color balls

Claim Chowder

Here are some past quotes regarding “evolutionary” vs. “revolutionary”. They haven’t stood the test of time very well.

An ungrateful man is like a hog under a tree eating acorns, but never looking up to see where they come from. ~ Timothy Dexter

    (T)he iPhone itself may not be so great after all. ~ Randall Stross, professor of business at San Jose State University, 12 December 2009

    The iPad is not the revolutionary product so many hoped it would be. ~ Don Reisinger, eWeek.com, 28 January 2010

    Yet for some of us who sat in the audience watching Steve Jobs introduce the [iPad], the whole thing felt like a letdown. ~ Daniel Lyons, BusinessWeek, 28 January 2010

    Ultimately, the iPad is a large iPod touch: a great device to draw your inspiration from, but perhaps not the seismic shift in technology that we were expecting. ~ Claudine Beaumont, The Telegraph, 28 January 2010

    The company once notorious for its ability to upend convention and revolutionize markets may no longer have what it takes, worry some technology journalists. Call it the iPad or the iPlod, but the message seems clear: Apple may have lost its mojo. ~ Jeremy A. Kaplan, FOXNews.com, 28 January 2010

    Behold: The Apple iFlop. Neither “truly magical” nor “revolutionary,” the cluelessly named Apple iPad tablet device has dropped like a shiny wedge into the gadget game, dividing tech watchers in to opposing views — the critical and the adoring. ~ Scott Moritz, TheStreet.com, 28 January 2010

    Apple’s new iPad device is destined to disappoint (and not just because of the unfortunate name). ~ Russ Wilcox, CEO E-Ink (makers of Amazon’s Kindle), 28 January 2010

    It’s not going to revolutionize anything, it’s not going to replace netbooks… ~ Bruce Beris, bruceb consulting, 4 February 2010

    Tablets look cool, but the reality is they don’t do anything new. ~ Michael Comeau, Minyanville, 5 March 2010

smartphone-gadgets-killed

    The iPad is a not so ‘magical’ e-reader. Expect to hear a lot of: ‘I spent a cold night in line for this?’ ~ Scott Moritz , TheStreet.com, 9 March 2010

    (T)he Apple iPad is not unique, nor necessarily the best of breed in the media tablet sector it is spearheading. ~ Anders Bylund (TMF Zahrim), 11 March 2010

    And while Apple would be expected to ignite the tablet computing sector as it has done with MP3 players and the smart phone, there is something it can no longer do: sneak up and surprise the competition. There is no surprise with this device; it is just a huge iPod touch. ~ John C. Dvorak, MarketWatch, 26 March 2010

    In short, I don’t get the ‘magical and revolutionary’ vibe that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs touted at the iPad’s January unveiling. ~ Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post, 9 April 2010

    The iPad is useless. Beautiful, but useless. ~ Josh Belzman, MSNBC.com, 20 May 2010

    Right off the bat, I’m glad to see that my initial reactions to [the iPad] were accurate. Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. ~ Paul Thurrott, Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows, 6 October 2010

    I cannot see a need for the thing [iPad]. ~ John Dvorak, MarketWatch, 22 October 2010

    I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 30 wanting an iPad. … Furthermore, I do not recall ever seeing anyone under 30 actually using an iPad. ~ John C. Dvorak, PC Mag, 13 December 2010

    But I don’t see any overwhelmingly compelling capabilities that would make people sitting on the tablet fence go out and have to buy one, despite some attractive apps. I don’t see this as heads above the competition (especially the Xoom) right now. Apple didn’t really move the bar all that much. ~ J. Gold, J. Gold Associates, 2 March 2011

    The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone’s impact on the world is negligible. ~ Thom Holwerda, OS News, 29 Dec 2011

Commuting

future-of-the-image

    Apple’s new iPhone 5 is a well-crafted device that’s likely to please the company’s fans and sell in the tens of millions. But if you’re looking for something truly innovative in a smartphone, look elsewhere. ~ Troy Wolverton, Mercury News, 12 Sep 2012

    Key take aways: Innovation at Apple is over… Just incremental improvements, nothing ground breaking. The best is over for Apple. ~ Trip Chowdhry, Global Equities, 23 October 2012

    And I’m really struck by this mini iPad thing. As if that’s any kind of a product innovation. You know, once you start just changing the size of your products, I really think you’re not exactly innovating. I wonder if they’re going to start coming out with the tutti-frutti iPad, where it comes out in different colors. As if that would be some sort of innovation… ~ Jeff Gundlach, CEO, Doubleline Capital, 7 Nov 2012

    However, for the company to truly move forward as a tech power, Apple should hang-up on the iPhone after one more iteration – presumably the iPhone 6. You might disagree. Granted, the phone is still selling well. However, aside from a different chip and larger screen, the change from the 4S to iPhone 5 was not that significant. ~ Richard Saintvilus, Forbes, 6 January 2013

    Google glasses may look and seem absurd now but (Brian) Sozzi says they are “a product that is going to set the stage for many other interesting products.” For the moment, at least, the same cannot be said of iPhones or iPads. ~ Jeff Macke, Yahoo! Breakout, 27 February 2013

    Enterprise tablets now exist that provide the best of both worlds between end user and IT, which puts the Apple in a precarious position of needing to add more robust enterprise features. Until that point, Moor Insights & Strategy recommends enterprises re-evaluate their iPad pilots and deployments. Enterprises should immediately evaluate the latest enterprise tablet offerings from HP, Dell and Lenovo and make their decisions on future deployments incorporating those additional options. ~ Patrick Moorhead, Moor Insights & Strategy, 15 March 2013

    Nothing new is coming from [Apple’s] pipeline. The iPhone5S and the iPad Mini aren’t new products. ~ Stephan Dube, Seeking Alpha, 28 May 2013

    Let’s face it this new iPhone is just an upgrade, a refresh, dare I say a sequel. I am sure that true tech devotees will tell me how wrong I am, that this new device is smarter, faster, revolutionary, etc. But to me and millions like me it seems a lot more evolutionary. It looks a whole lot like the last iPhone and the one before that and the one before that too. ~ Sandy Cannold, ABC News, 23 Sept 2013

    (T)hese days, Samsung sells the most smartphones, and up-and-coming manufacturers like Huawei and ZTE are nipping at Apple’s heels. The new iPhones — at least the ones being spun from the rumor mill that claim color as the big innovation — do not exactly sound like great leaps in technology. ~ Nick Bilton, New York Times, 8 September 2013

    Remember when the iPhone was truly innovative? Think hard, because you’d have to go back to 2007, and the release of the first iPhone. But since then, Apple has been tossing out retread after retread… ~ Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 13 September 2013

    The 5c may be this year’s Surface RT. ~ Rick Munarriz, The Motley Fool, 13 Sept 2013

    Apple’s innovation problem is real. … Rivals have caught up to Apple in the markets it once dominated, and the tech giant’s rumored future products appear to be more evolutionary than revolutionary. ~ Julianne Pepitone and Adrian Covert, CNNMoneyTech, 8 September 2013

    The most that Apple could think to do with the new, faster processor in the iPhone 5S was animate 3D effects that make some users feel ill and a fingerprint sensor that solved a problem that wasn’t exactly pressing. Apple’s new iOS7 mobile operating system, which felt ‘more like a Microsoft release,’ crippled many older iPhones and led to complaints of planned obsolescence. ~ Christopher Mims, Quartz, 30 December 2013

    By copying the work of others, Apple seems to admit it has fallen behind competitors. ~ Transcend Asset, 5 June 2014

Lessons Learned And Unlearned

I can think of (at least) three lessons here.

First, little people belittle greatness.

To belittle, you have to be little. ~ Khalil Gibran

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Ridicule is the tribute paid to…genius by the mediocrities. ~ Oscar Wilde

Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds. ~ Zig Ziglar

Second, we often do not see what is right before our eyes.

You see, but you do not observe. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Third, acceptance comes in stages.

All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Apple Claim Chowder Series:

Introduction
Events
Killers
Cynicism
Product
Evolutionary Or Revolutionary
Business Models

Microsoft Is The Very Antithesis Of Strategy

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Microsoft could learn much from Sun Tzu. Over the past fifteen to twenty years, Microsoft has engaged in the very worst kind of generalship. Microsoft has allowed their competitors to join forces and successfully scheme against them. Microsoft has responded to the successes of their competitors by forswearing their strongest weapons, abandoning their strongest defensive positions and rushing to attack their competitors wherever they may be, even if those battlefields were located where Microsoft was at its weakest and their competitors were are at their strongest. When these attacks inevitably failed, Microsoft resorted to wars of attrition. Yet in these wars of attrition, it was Microsoft, not their opponents, who suffered most, taking disproportionally greater losses than they inflicted.

There are some roads not to follow; some troops not to strike; some cities not to assault; and some ground which should not be contested. ~ Sun Tzu

Microsoft’s approach is the very antithesis of a strategy. Here are five principles of war. See how Microsoft violates them over and over again.

Principle #1: Concentration

The principles of war, not merely one principle, can be condensed into a single word – ‘concentration’. But for truth this needs to be amplified as the ‘concentration of strength against weakness’. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

Microsoft’s strategy over the past two decades has been the very opposite of concentration. Instead of acting, they react — lashing out in multiple, uncoordinated directions. A good strategy forces the opponent to compete on a battlefield where they have no chance of winning. Microsoft does the opposite. They pick fights they don’t need to fight, and they fight those battles on their opponent’s home turf, where their opponent is at their very best and Microsoft is at its very weakest.

Principle #2: Avoid Frontal Assaults

From the beginning of organized warfare, frontal attacks against prepared defenses have usually failed, a fact written large in military history for all generals to see. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

The essence of strategy is to play to your strengths while taking advantage on your opponent’s weaknesses. Microsoft routinely flips this on its head, going out of its way to fight on battlefields of its opponent’s choosing — battlefields that emphasize the strengths of Microsoft’s opponent’s and minimize Microsoft’s own strengths.

It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

In military terms, Microsoft does not just seek out the enemy — they look for them on the highest, most fortified hill, bristling with weapons — then they march straight at ’em.

To refrain from intercepting an enemy whose banners are in perfect order, to refrain from attacking an army drawn up in calm and confident array:–this is the art of studying circumstances. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Contrary to the art of war, Microsoft just LOVES to make frontal assaults against the enemy while their banners are in perfect order.

The Spartans do not ask how many the enemies are but where they are. ~ Agis Ii, King Of Sparta

One may admire the bravado, the daring, and the courage of both the Spartans and Microsoft, but attacking the enemy where the enemy is strongest was not, is not and never will be sound strategy.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Example #1: iPod

In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod. By 2004, it was a smash success. Microsoft reacted, rather than acted. Instead of asking themselves WHY they needed to enter the MP3 market or even WHETHER they needed to enter the MP3 market, they attacked — first with their software licensed PlaysForSure, and later with their own Zune branded hardware.

From a strategic standpoint, Microsoft’s move to create the Zune was inane and bordering on the insane. Its strategy:

1) Obliged Microsoft to betray its existing allies (hardware manufacturing partners);
2) Required Microsoft to abandon its greatest and most powerful weapon (licensing software to hardware manufacturers);
3) Compelled Microsoft to fight with unfamiliar weapons (hardware);
4) Forced Microsoft to fight on the battlefield of its opponent’s choosing and where its opponent could could leverage its strongest assets (integrated software and hardware).

Therefore, those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him. – Sun Tzu

It’s the equivalent of a lion — the king of his domain — abandoning the land in order to fight a shark at sea. What madness! It was a strategy that favored Apple and handicapped Microsoft in every meaningful way. It was, in fact, not a strategy at all but the abandonment of strategy. Instead of pitting their strength against their opponent’s weakness, Microsoft pitted their weakness against Apple’s strength. Microsoft’s defeat was virtually guaranteed.

Example #2: Bing

Google was founded in 1998 and soon became a very real threat to Microsoft. A response by Microsoft was appropriate and called for…but not the response Microsoft made. As usual, Microsoft went right at ’em by challenging Google where Google was strongest and where Microsoft was nonexistent — in search.

Let’s examine this from a strategic perspective:

  1. Attack opponent where opponent is strongest. Check.
  2. Attack opponent with a weapon with which you have little or no expertise (search engine/machine language). ((Of course, Microsoft has plenty of experience and expertise in search now, but at a tremendous price in both money and in time. Lost money, Microsoft can afford. Lost time, not so much.)) Check.
  3. Attack opponent where they live, thus guaranteeing that they will they will be inspired to fight with desperation in order to ensure their very survival. Check.
  4. Attack where even success gains you little or nothing. Check.

Do not throw your weight into a stroke whilst your opponent is on guard – whilst he is well placed to parry or evade it. The experience of history shows that, save against a much inferior opponent, no effective stroke is possible until his power of resistance or evasion is paralysed. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s search engine efforts haven’t significantly hurt Google. Worse still, they’ve actually HELPED Google. When Microsoft pitted Bing against Google Search, they created a legitimate, albeit ineffective, competitor. And that, in turn, meant Google was not a monopoly in search and not subject to government anti-trust and anti-monopoly oversight.

As when snow is squeezed into a snowball, direct pressure has always the tendency to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent, and the more compact it becomes the more difficult it is to melt. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

I will readily concede that Bing has served, and continues to serve, Microsoft well on the back end. But on the back end is where it should have remained. By attacking Google directly where Google was strongest, Microsoft has lost billions upon billions of dollars and the result has been to make Google Search more, not less, secure.

Summary

Great generals know a direct attack, on the other hand, consolidates an enemy’s defenses and, even if he is defeated, merely forces him back on his reserves and his supplies. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

Over the past 20 years, Microsoft’s only stratagem has been to directly assault their competitors where their competitors are strongest. This bull-headed non-strategy was formed in the late nineties when Microsoft truly did have overwhelming superiority. Back then, what Microsoft wanted, Microsoft took.

It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It’s not the late nineties anymore and Microsoft no longer outnumbers their competitors ten to one — or outnumbers them at all — but they still act as if they do. When one is outnumbered, one should flee, not fight. It may not sound like the noble thing to do, but it’s very sound strategy.

STRATEGY Definition on Blackboard (business marketing planning)

Principle #3: Never Reinforce Failure

A general must never reinforce failure. ~ Clausewitz ((Excerpt From: Charles River Editors. “The Top 5 Greatest Generals: Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte.”))

One of the myths that surrounds Microsoft is they “get it right on the third try”. I heard a pundit say this just last week in regard to the Microsoft Surface.

Really?

When was the last time Microsoft “got it right” on the third iteration? Or any subsequent iteration? The last time I recall Microsoft out-iterating an opponent was with Netscape, which was some 15 years ago. Or perhaps one could be thinking of the Xbox ((I would argue Xbox is a tactical master stroke but a strategic blunder — but that is an argument for another day.)) where Microsoft went five billion dollars in the red before even starting to make a return. However, those long ago victories can provide Microsoft with little solace today. Microsoft is no longer the 900-pound guerrilla it was a decade ago. And I think it is fair to say Apple is no Netscape and Google is no Sony PlayStation 2.

Do not renew an attack along the same line (or in the same form) after it has once failed. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

With products like Windows Phone 7 (now 8), Surface, and Windows 8, Microsoft is not iterating faster and catching up to their opponents. Far from it. They’re falling farther and farther behind. And it doesn’t matter anyway because the race they’r running in is already over.

Once a problem is solved, you compete by rethinking the problem, not making a slightly better version of the current solution. ~ Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans)

Windows Phone 8 is an attempt to solve a problem that has already been solved by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Surface is an attempt to pretend Apple didn’t solve the tablet problem when they introduced the iPad. Windows 8 is an attempt to ignore their decade-long failure to transplant a desktop operating user interface onto a tablet form factor.

Great generals do not repeat what has failed before. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

Microsoft is not re-thinking the problem. They are simply failing at the same thing, in the same way, over and over again.

Principle #4: Avoid Sieges

The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Microsoft simply does not quit. When they fail to win in the open field, they settle in for a long, drawn out siege. Yet when has this strategy ever worked for Microsoft? When, in recent history, has Microsoft ever overcome simply by carrying on?

These sieges have only led to Microsoft growing progressively weaker while their competitors grow ever stronger. It’s the exact opposite effect that the strategy is supposed to accomplish.

You may admire Microsoft’s doggedness — I do — and you may admire their perseverance — I do — but you simply cannot admire their strategy. Persistence is one thing. Pigheaded stubbornness is another thing altogether.

Attrition is a two-edged weapon and, even when skillfully wielded, puts a strain on the users. ~ B.H. Liddel Hart, Strategy

Attrition is a long, slow, arduous and costly grind. It should only be used as a last resort. And its use makes no sense at all when it costs the aggressor more than it costs the besieged. That way lies only exhaustion, collapse and defeat.

To adopt the method of attrition is not only a confession of stupidity, but a waste of strength, endangering both the chances during the combat and the profit of victory. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

Principle #5: Keep Your Object Always In Mind

Keep your object always in mind, while adapting your plan to circumstances. Realize that there are more ways than one of gaining an object, but take heed that every objective should bear on the object. And in considering possible objectives weigh their possibility of attainment with their service to the object if attained – to wander down a sidetrack is bad, but to reach a dead end is worse. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

Microsoft should take the above paragraph and pin it to every door, in every office in Redmond…

…except first, of course, they should identify what their object is.

Microsoft Has No Vision, No Mission, No Object To Guide Them

Everything wrong with Microsoft’s strategy comes down to this:

[pullquote]A person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it.[/pullquote]

Microsoft doesn’t know what their objective is.

Without that compass, without that “north star” to guide them, Microsoft is like a rudderless ship, subject to the pull and sway of every wind and every current.

Manage The Top Line

Somebody once told me, “Manage the top line, and the bottom line will follow.” What’s the top line? It’s things like, why are we doing this in the first place? What’s our strategy? What are customers saying? How responsive are we? Do we have the best products and the best people? Those are the kind of questions you have to focus on. ~ Steve Jobs

Does Microsoft ask itself such questions? If so, their actions certainly don’t reflect it.

In fact, I double-dog dare you to articulate Microsoft’s vision or its mission. The following is the best I could discover. I like the passion expressed, but I assure you, it’s not nearly specific enough to act as the guidance Microsoft so desperately needs:

We are obsessed with empowering people to do more and be more. ~ @Satyanadella (5/20/14)

Microsoft Needs To Re-Define Itself

— Microsoft has forgotten what they are good at.
— Microsoft has forgotten what business they are in.
— Microsoft has forgotten who they are.

In Nadella, Microsoft has a new CEO whom I admire. However, if he has a new vision for Microsoft, he has not yet clearly articulated it — and he needs to do just that.

Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission. ~ Peter Drucker

Microsoft must redefine itself — must reset their vision. And then then need to shout that vision from the rooftops.

The very essence of leadership is you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.  You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. ~ Theodore Hesburgh

Conclusion

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip…. ~ Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August

Past triumphs and past glories seem to hold Microsoft in their dead grip too. Microsoft is still fighting yesterday’s wars with yesterday’s no-longer-existing weapons. They need to acknowledge reality as it is and change their strategy accordingly.

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

In my Insider’s article (subscription required) , I’ll talk about the strategy that Microsoft could — but almost certainly will not — follow.

Career Decision

4 Mobile Business Models, 4 Ways To Keep Score

The hundred meter dash, archery, weightlifting and the long jump are four very different Olympic sports with four very different methods of keeping score. The hundred meter dash is scored on speed. Archery is scored on accuracy. Weightlifting is scored on strength. The long jump is scored on distance. You don’t judge the participants in the hundred yard dash by how much weight they can lift. That would be the wrong way to measure them.

“…looking at ‘smartphone share’ or ‘profit share’ or ‘platform share’ all tell you something about the industry, but all three metrics mislead you if you try to treat them as a way to see who’s ‘winning’, because ‘winning’ means different things for Apple, Samsung or Google. After all, Google may well still make more money from searches on iOS than it does from searches on Android.” ~ Ben Evans, On market share

Hardware manufacturing, advertising, “razors-and-blades” content sales, and platforms are four very different business models and they have four very different methods of keeping score too.

You don’t take the metrics used to measure one business model and apply them to another business model. That would be the wrong way to measure them.

Each business model demands its own specific forms of scoring. The goal should be to devise, discover, or discern a form of measurement that properly and accurately reflects how a business is performing in the business model in which it is participating.

Biathlons, Triathlons and Decathlons are all unusual Olympic events in that they group together several disparate sports and then determine an overall winner. Think of Apple, Google, Samsung, and Amazon as Olympic teams that compete with one another in the four interrelated mobile business models – hardware manufacturing, advertising, “razors-and-blades” content sales, and platforms – a sort of Quadrathlon. Each team has its strengths and its weaknesses, each team wants to win the events that they’re best at and maximize their score in the other events in order to win the overall Quadrathlon.

Let the games begin!

Hardware Manufacturing

Last week I tried to explain how using only market share to analyze mobile hardware manufacturing was not only the wrong way to keep score of that business model but that it was actually obscuring the real score.

“The truth is that focusing on market share as the primary metric is the only way to paint the iPhone as anything other than a roaring success.” ~ John Gruber

I suggested an alternative measurement known as the “Fair share profit analysis,” in order to generate some perspective but, truth be told, the only real way to accurately “score” who’s winning in hardware manufacturing is with net hardware profits. When it comes to selling mobile hardware, do Apple, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, etc. really care what their market share is? No they do not. That’s the top line, a means to an end. The only thing that matters when they are selling mobile hardware is profit. That’s the bottom line, the end for which the means were made. Market share is all well and good but only if it brings home the profits. Keep your eyes on the prize – and profits are the prize.

So who’s winning the medals in the olympic sport of mobile hardware manufacturing?
genuity
Source: “Who’s Winning, iOS or Android? All the Numbers, All in One Place

Awards Ceremony: Apple walks away with the Gold (both figuratively and almost literally), Samsung takes the Silver and no one else even medals. The Bronze podium stands empty.

Advertising

The only proper way to score advertising is net advertising profits retained. Market share and platform may be used to garner advertising revenue but they are only the means and they should never be confused with profit, which is the end.

Today, there are three great truths in mobile advertising:

1) Google is killing it in mobile advertising.
2) Google is killing it in mobile advertising…but mobile advertising is still relatively small; and
3) The vast majority of Google’s mobile advertising revenue is generated on the iOS platform, not the Android platform.

1) Google is killing it in mobile advertising.

Google dominates the mobile search market with 93% of US mobile search advertising dollars, according to eMarketer. Facebook is at No. 2.

2) Mobile advertising is still relatively small.

The mobile ad market alone stood at roughly $4.1 billion at the end of last year, up from $1.5 billion at the end of 2011. Google, currently has more than half the mobile ads market with annual revenues of around $2.2 billion.

Just to keep things in perspective, mobile ad revenue only accounted for 9% of all online ad revenue last year, although the percentage of mobile ads vis-a-vis other online ads is rapidly growing. And mobile ad revenues paled in comparison with mobile hardware sales. While it took an entire year for ALL mobile ad revenue to reach $4.1 billion, Apple alone, and in 90 days, and in what many considered a down quarter, brought in revenues of approximately $31.4 billion just from iPhone and iPad sales.

3) Google is making its advertising money on iOS, not Android

“(I)t’s Android’s large market share that is the winner for Google. The more Android devices being used, the more Google services with Google ads are being used.” – Virtual Pants

Actually, not so very much. Most of Google’s advertising dollars are generated by iOS’s relatively smaller market share, not by Android’s massive market share.

MoPub-Ad-Spend-Share-Jan-Feb-March

Source: MoPub

Take a good hard look at the chart, above. The iPhone ad spend doubles the ad spend share of ALL of Android. The iPad almost matches ALL of Android BY ITSELF. And even the lowly iPod has one-quarter of the ad spend that ALL of Android does. Market share is all that matters? I don’t think so. That’s like arguing that acreage is all that matters in real estate. The size of the lot does matter in real estate but location, location, location matters more, more, more. And market share does matter in mobile advertising but it is the location of the market share that matters even more.

Apple’s iOS Mobile Ad Metrics Dominates Android

Why 75 cents of every dollar spent on mobile advertising is spent on iPhone and iPad

iOS leads Android in mobile ad revenue

Apple’s iPad dominates online shopping traffic & revenue generation

iOS Still Top Platform For Monetising Mobile Ads, Opera’s Q1 Study Finds, iPhone Also Beating Android For Generating Ad Traffic

iPad Still Dominates Tablet Ads With iPad Mini Gaining, Velti Finds

“My belief, though, is that what Google is winning with Android is a booby prize — overwhelming majority share of the unprofitable segment of the market.” – John Gruber

When it comes to ad revenues and profits, we shouldn’t be counting Android as a single entity anyway. Ad revenues don’t help Android, the platform. They help specific digital stores. Ads going to Amazon, Google, and the various stores in China and elsewhere need to be broken out separately, not lumped together.

Awards Ceremony: Google wins the Gold and they win it going away. But they receive their Gold medal standing on the Apple iOS platform, not the Android platform.

Silver and Bronze? I’ll let you decide if it’s Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing or someone else. They’re all so far back that it doesn’t much matter now anyway. That may change over time but we’ll have to wait and see how this market develops.

“Razors-And-Blades” Content Sales

“(T)he razor and blades business model, is a business model wherein one item is sold at a low price (or given away for free) in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as supplies…” ~ Wikipedia

The “razors-and-blades” business model is tricky to score.

— Hardware revenues and profits mean NOTHING in the “razors-and-blades” model. In fact, it’s not unusual to LOSE money from hardware (razor) sales.

— Market share means both nothing and everything in the “razors-and-blades” model. It means nothing because it doesn’t actually generate any profits but it means everything because it is a prerequisite to generating profits. In fact, the only reason you’re giving away your hardware in the first place is to acquire massive market share which, in turn, will hopefully lead to massive profits.

— Ultimately, the only way to measure the success of the “razors-and-blades” model is on the net profits generated by the sale of the complementary goods (razors). In mobile, the complementary goods are content such as music, video, books, etc. and apps. Amazon also has the added advantage of being able to sell everything from their sprawling retail catalog.

As I tried to explain in my tersely titled article: “Selling The Amazon Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 Is As Silly As Selling Razor Blades To Men Who Love Beards“, the “razors-and-blades” model makes no sense in this market space. At least it makes no sense to me. In the “razors-and-blades” model, the complementary sales – whether it be blades for razors, or ink for inkjet printers or games for gaming consoles – must be proprietary and must command a premium price. That’s the whole point. Give away the razor, make it back – and more – by selling the blades at a premium.

If you’re selling content, you want to be platform agnostic so that you can sell as much content as possible. This, in my opinion, should be Amazon’s strategy.

If you’re giving away hardware in order to sell content, then you want that content to be tied to your hardware product so that you can monopolize the sale of the complementary product and command a premium price.

In the mobile space, the complementary sales ARE NOT proprietary, they ARE subject to competition and they DO NOT command a premium price. Amazon and Google don’t sell content that is any different or superior to that being sold by Apple and other content providers and their content isn’t being sold at a premium. In fact, Amazon often sells their merchandise at a DISCOUNT which – in the “razors-and-blades” business model – is completely bat-manure crazy. ((Then again, we all know that Jeff Bezos is crazy like a fox.))

So who’s winning in the “razors-and-blades” business model? Why, surprisingly, it’s Apple and it’s Apple in a runaway.

Google Play now at 90% of iOS app store downloads; iOS still holds a 2.6X revenue lead

Despite growing competition from other tablets, Apple’s iPad still accounts for a whopping 89.28 percent of e-commerce website traffic, and also rakes in more money on a per-user basis than any other platform. ~ Monetate

Distimo reports that iOS App Store revenues were 430% larger than Android during 2012. ~ Apple F2Q13 Earnings Call

“…iTunes inclusive of Apple’s own Software generates as much as 15% operating margin on gross revenues. That’s over $2 billion a year.” ~ Asymco, So long, break-even

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Source: Canalys

Apple sells their content, not in order to make money but, in order to make their hardware more attractive so that they can sell ever more hardware and make ever more profits. With regard to tablets, Apple is playing the OPPOSITE game that the Amazon Fire and the Google Nexus are playing. While Amazon and Google subsidize their tablets (razors) in order to make money on the sale of their content (blades), Apple should be subsidizing the sale of their content (blades) in order to make money on the sale of their hardware (razors). But that’s not how Apple rolls. Instead, Apple sells their hardware at a premium AND they sell their content at a premium. That’s not supposed to happen but that’s just how good the Apple ecosystem is.

It’s like a walk-on winning the Olympic marathon while everyone else is stuck in the starting blocks.

You can say that it’s elitist or arrogant to argue that iOS users are better customers than Android users. But you can also say that it’s the truth. ~ John Gruber, Church of market share

One last thing. If Amazon and Google have an incentive to sell discounted hardware and premium content and Apple has an incentive to sell premium hardware and discounted content, one of those business models is going to fail and it’s going to fail hard. Since Apple is, so far, successfully selling premium hardware AND premium content, I’ll let you be the judge of how this is going to play out.

Awards Ceremony: I’m tempted to award all three medals to Apple just for having the sheer audacity to win a game that they didn’t even enter. But I guess Apple will have to console themselves with just winning the Gold.

And the Amazon Fire and the Google Nexus tablets? Disqualified for not understanding the rules of the game that they were playing.

Remember, Amazon and Google sell their hardware at cost. They don’t make a penny off those sales and they might even be taking a loss.

Market share? Yes, they have taken some minor market share…in a market where they are GIVING AWAY THEIR MERCHANDISE. And market share is not how you score in the “razors-and-blades” game. While the press and the pundits fawn over the market share of the Amazon Fire and the Google Nexus, what they’re entirely missing is that in the “razors-and-blades” business model, market share should be a GIVEN. I mean, honestly, if you can’t obtain overwhelming market share when you’re giving away your product at cost, then you should be ashamed, embarrassed, abashed, chagrined, humiliated and mortified ’cause you’re doing something terribly, terribly wrong.

You win the “razors-and-blades” game by scoring the most content profits. All those Amazon Fire and Google Nexus market share numbers that the analysts are always going gaga over? Meaningless. They should be removed from the count. They’re probably not hurting the sales of the other available tablets and they’re not helping the bottom lines of their makers either. There is zero proof that Amazon and Google’s hardware giveaways have led to increased retail sales which, after all, in the “razors-and-blades” model, IS the point.

And if you’re going to prophesy that market share alone gives Google data that will someday, somehow, be worth something to someone, then you need to go back and re-read how the “razor-and-blades” business model is scored.

What we desperately need in analyzing mobile computing is far more attention paid to profits and far less attention paid to prophets.

Next Time

Next time I will finish with the “mother” of all business models – platforms – and do the medal count.

Google’s Android Activations Are A Lot Less Cash Cow And A Lot More Bull. And That’s OK.

Read Part One of John’s column entitled: Android’s Market Share Is Literally A Joke

Read Part Three of John’s column entitled: Google’s Android Activations Are A Lot Less Cash Cow And A Lot More Bull. And That’s OK.

The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Ben Bajarin and Steve Wildstrom. All the great ideas, that you agree with, were theirs. All the bad ideas, that you disagree with, were mine.

Apple Retail is Key to Their Competitive Advantage

Apple has several things I consider to be keys to their competitive advantage. Fundamental advantages that when you study become clear differentiators as well as roadblocks for Apple competitors. However if I were to prioritize, their retail strategy would be near the top as a key to their competitive advantage – here is why.

Continue reading Apple Retail is Key to Their Competitive Advantage