Market Watch
written by John Shinal
Friday June 29, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO — You can officially add Research In Motion to the list of companies that Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO, has dispatched from the technology marketplace. This time Jobs has done it posthumously.
With Apple wielding such power, I have to wonder which mobile phone rival might be next on that list, which also includes Nokia.
The news that RIM (RIMM +1.35%) is delaying the release of its next-generation phone is certain to be the death knell for the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry. Despite pioneering corporate email and text delivered to a mobile device, RIM is now toast.
Even though it owned the corporate and professional markets at one time, any company that gets beaten by the competition during one consumer shopping season is usually punished harshly by the fickle cell-phone market.
Consumers are always on the hunt for the latest features, and the Canadians have now been lapped by the techies from Cupertino (AAPL +1.46%) for at least three upgrade cycles.
The mindshare battle is over. Nokia (NOK +3.38%) and RIM will be gone as brands soon. Bet on it.
Jobs’s stroke of genius in mobile was the recognition that software features — not any of the capabilities or security provided by wireless-network hardware — would control the market.
It wasn’t an original notion, of course.
Overseas wireless carriers have less market power in many countries, as compared with the U.S. And Jobs recognized that the U.S. consumer was ripe to take advantage of that trend. Then he directed Apple toward the building of a device that could take advantage of it. Slide Show: Apple’s iPhone turns 5 on Friday.
The companies that weren’t ready for the transition, such as Palm, Nokia and RIM, are now watching from the sidelines. Motorola has been swallowed by Google (GOOG +0.07%), and it’s still anyone’s guess how the latest models will do.
Whenever I travel, what I see more and more of are iPhones, and a smattering of Android-powered devices. I don’t see more BlackBerry units.
Maybe if I spent more time around lawyers or doctors, I would.
And I don’t see more of whatever Nokia is calling its latest (delayed) phone.
But niche professional markets don’t dictate technology trends in mobile any longer, not since Jobs managed to shift at least some of the power away from the U.S. wireless carriers during his original iPhone negotiations.
At present, Google’s ecosystem is the only serious threat to total Apple smartphone domination.
If Microsoft wants its mobile business to survive — in either the hardware or software markets — in the face of the iPhone juggernaut, its time may be very short.
The mobile graveyard is getting crowded.
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