Mobile phones war: Apple 1 - M$ 0
 

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Wow.

Apple may have lost battles 1 (IBM PC + MS DOS) and 2 (Desktop GUIs) to Microsoft, but did they just win the war with their SDK?


Gartner says that 250 million or so PCs were sold in 2007. They also say that 1.15 Billion (with a B) cell phones sold in 2007.


In 6 months, Apple has built a smartphone sales share roughly equal to Microsofts' (28% of US smartphones vs. MSFT's 31% vs RIM's 41%).


Microsoft makes $1-$2 per unit for the OS license for Windows Mobile. They have no recurring revenue stream per unit. Apple is making a profit on iPhones plus reportedly getting an $8/mo/user kickback from AT&T in the US. One assumes they have a similar arrangement with other carriers in other countries.


Can Apple convince developers to build cool mobile apps? Yup. They've got a suite of truly modern development tools and a well-thought-out and documented platform for building them. Ever looked at Microsoft's mobile dev tools? Ugh. And Visual Studio targeting WM5 or 6 is a damn sight better than the BlackBerry toolchain.


More importantly, can Apple, by convincing folks to buy iPhones instead of iPods and instead of other smartphones, get to 10% of worldwide cell phone sales over time?


I think the answer might be Yes.


Dus ome Gates heeft deze keer de oorlog verloren. Ik zie trouwens ook professionals die bij Microsoft werken gewoon met een iphone lopen...