{"id":3341,"date":"2011-06-21T03:24:51","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T07:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=3341"},"modified":"2014-03-17T05:12:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T09:12:46","slug":"the-smartphone-wars-circling-the-rim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=3341","title":{"rendered":"The Smartphone Wars: Circling the RIM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a quiet week in the smartphone wars.  The three most interesting developments are (a) stock analysts have begun hanging crepe for RIM&#8217;s funeral, (b) HP has priced its WebOS tablet to die, and (c) the iPhone 5 is now not expected in September, being constrained by iOS 5&#8217;s ship date.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>RIM&#8217;s stock price has been badly hammered in recent weeks by plummeting market share and the failure of the Playbook launch.  Layoffs have been announced.  Typical coverage these days asks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/06\/17\/rim-blackberry_n_879552.html\">whether RIM can survive<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2011-06-21\/rim-takeover-beckons-microsoft-with-cheapest-multiple-real-m-a.html\">Takeover talk has begun<\/a>, with Dell and Microsoft mentioned as possible buyers.  App developers are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/g\/a\/2011\/06\/20\/businessinsider-seesmic-stops-supporting-the-blackberry-2011-6.DTL\">bailing out.<\/a>  <\/p>\n<p>For months I thought there was a strong possibility that RIM would soft-land in a defensible market niche around its business customers.  But the last quarter has been blunder after blunder; RIM simply is not behaving like a company with the capability to pull out of a death spiral.  I&#8217;d say we&#8217;re about seven months plus or minus two from a crash or buyout.<\/p>\n<p>HP&#8217;s WebOS-based TouchPad tablet is out, and Jason Perlow is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/blog\/perlow\/hps-touchpad-dead-on-arrival\/17577\">devastating<\/a> about the problem with it, repeating a theme I&#8217;ve been sounding here for months.  The TouchPad, and all of the iPad&#8217;s other competitors, are priced to sink like stones.  Product planners all over the industry are living in a ludicrous fantasy if they think they can compete with the iPad at the iPad&#8217;s price point; Apple&#8217;s brand strength makes this suicidal.  They need to cut margins and prices until it hurts, and then cut a bit more, to get traction.  HP is not doing this and consequently HP will fail.<\/p>\n<p>But Apple has troubles of its own.  Word is that the iPhone 5 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/articles\/166400\/20110621\/twist-in-tale-no-iphone-5-on-september-7-it-could-arrive-in-octobe-november-android-os-droid-bionic.htm\">won&#8217;t ship in September<\/a> because iOS 5 won&#8217;t be ready by then.  On Apple&#8217;s hints about the iOS 5 release date, the iPhone 5 could be delayed as late as November.  And it&#8217;s not going to be a full update, either, just a processor and camera upgrade; some rumors have it being branded as the &#8216;4S&#8217;, with &#8216;5&#8217; reserved for a major upgrade in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Apple&#8217;s problem is that the new iPhone, 4S or 5, is going to be facing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/articles\/165893\/20110620\/apple-iphone-5-ios-5-samsung-galaxy-s-2-htc-sensation-htc-evo-3d-motorola-photon-atrix-android-2-3-g.htm\">brutal competition<\/a> from upcoming Androids like the Samsung Galaxy S 2, HTC Sensation, EVO 3D, and the rumored Nexus 4G.  All these phones will be offering 4G, display technology fully as good as the Apple &#8220;retina screen&#8221; and probably faster processors.  <\/p>\n<p>A weak iPhone upgrade simply won&#8217;t fare well against these phones.  Falling behind in 4G\/LTE support is particularly likely to lose Apple high-end sales.  And a poor 2011 Christmas season could completely finish off the iPhone&#8217;s chances of regaining lost ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a quiet week in the smartphone wars. The three most interesting developments are (a) stock analysts have begun hanging crepe for RIM&#8217;s funeral, (b) HP has priced its WebOS tablet to die, and (c) the iPhone 5 is now not expected in September, being constrained by iOS 5&#8217;s ship date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-smartphone-wars","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5509,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions\/5509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}