Is Microsoft actually pointing the way to an amazing evolution of the mobile space, with Google to follow? If so, this could be the biggest sea change ever in wireless and mobile, reshaping the competitive and market landscape like never before.
OK, so there are big strategic problems with Microsoft’s tablet strategy. But let’s for a moment suppose that they really go the vertically-integrated route pioneered by Apple – screw the OEM model (and the OEMs); let’s own it all, from software to hardware to retail. While I can’t see Microsoft’s market value holding up under such an enormous shift, and there’s no telling what pissed-off former OEM customers might do that could further fragment the market, let’s, like I said, suppose.
Microsoft essentially becomes a strategic clone of Apple – different products, but an identical strategy. Microsoft similarly builds its own handsets, which would be more-or-less software-compatible with the Surface tablet. One might argue this is the only real alternative here no matter what, as Nokia is Microsoft’s only real friend in the handset space (OK, there are a few HTC and Samsung products as well) and they are going south just about as fast as RIM and BlackBerry. While a Windows Phone alone has little appeal, I think, couple a Phone, Tablet, and line of PCs under the same software umbrella, and one that’s aimed at business and enterprise use (unlike Apple’s historical consumer bent), and you just might have something there – assuming, again, that the loss of Windows OEM revenue doesn’t bring about a crisis in the process.
All those jilted OEMs, as I noted last time, might very well build a new Linux-based OS, or they could adopt Google’s ChromeOS/Chromium OS with something like the Wine API, or maybe even a variant on Android, just for example. Google’s still an OEM supplier of systems software, after all, with half the smartphone market today. But, again just for grins, what might happen if Google uses the Motorola capabilities it now owns to build its own line of handsets and tablets (they don’t seem to be really interested in PCs, but they could easily build those as well), and then tells its OEMs that it’s pulling a Microsoft on them, too? Samsung? HTC? LG? Sony? All, and more across the whole food chain, screwed.
Apple would love this – fewer competitors to track, and none of this affects them in the least unless they screw up, which is possible but unlikely. The battle would then become Google vs. Microsoft; no contest in my mind; Microsoft, badly damaged from self-inflicted channel/strategy-conflict wounds, comes in second in this fight and third overall – but doesn’t disappear entirely. Thus there may indeed be method in Steve Balmer’s madness, as being Number Three is better than not being at all.
And, of course, if a major additional supplier of systems software appears, perhaps Intel’s Tizen or Ubuntu or whatever (it’s certain to be Linux-based regardless), all those left out in the cold across the PC/tablet/handset frontiers may still be able to survive if not prosper – but this whole process, if such is really at work here, will take many years to play out. Regardless, this would be a sea change of epic proportions, reshaping the mobile landscape forever.
But, like I said, we were just playing a game here. Or were we?
