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Could it be that it was Android that hurt Blackberry and Nokia more than the iPhone did? Low end Android phones definitely replaced a lot of Symbian phones in the marketplace. It would certainly explain the timing of the change.

The point isn't whether it was Android or iPhone (for the record, the Droid campaign started fall 2009). The notion of getting disrupted by higher cost phones--not iPhone for a Symbian but a smart phone for a flip phone--was so unthinkable and invisible that for three years the two companies under discussion here made do selling to emerging markets. It's essentially a tale of how the market and leadership at these companies do not see disruptions from above coming, and if they do see them coming being in a paradoxical state of needing to reverse course on a (thus far) successful strategy.

Not seeing how this follows from the data... There is a real chance of smartphones getting commodotized

Nobody is arguing that smart phones haven't been commoditized. The question is, how viable is a business that does not serve the low end? According to critics who are not keen on the nuances between these different products, a high-end play is not viable at all. But this is ignorant of the history of the Mac and iPod. It's also ignorant of the fate of PC-era commodity players.

By the way, I love the last sentence of Horace's piece here: "That’s not likely to be the case for those who found themselves in competition with the Mac in its pocketable re-incaration."--he's hinting at the possibility that these scary "commodity players," even if they see success, set themselves up poorly for the next round of disruption. Apple's whole-widget approach uniquely set it up to introduce disruptive form factors, and might do so again in the future.

>Not seeing how this follows from the data and analysis and seems to be a rather bold claim. There is a real chance of smartphones getting commodotized and it has already happened to a certain extent in China and India, where local OEMs are calling the shots.

I spend time in both countries you mention and couple more in Asia. Local OEMs are calling the shots because market as a whole is growing. But, the smarter OEMs realize that they have to make phones that are less shoddy. That is why you see brands like Oppo. What I have seen in the last couple of years is that as people get busier, they don't have time or patience to handle rubbish phones. They will not mind spending more money to get an iPhone or a Mac. Many analysts in the west try to say something like we Asians buy these gadgets as a status symbol. It might be true to a certain extent, but more people are getting them these because they are tired of cheap and crappy devices.

Couldn't agree more with both points. Of course android ate Nokia's pie (cheap phones for everyone). Rather unsure about blackberry, i think thats more a thing that android and ios both now have excellent infrastructure integration (MS exchange etc) for corporate support.

You're also right with how cheap OEM android phones are taking over the market. iOS is losing marketshare pretty much everywhere where phones are not heavily subsidised or the comparative income is low, namely everywhere but the US and UK (and a couple of others). Unless apple drops its ios prices to more reasonable levels (they are really taking the p*ss), it's going to be the same story as the one that unfolded with mac/windows.

Whilst I agree that Nokia and Blackberry were disrupted by Android, not the iPhone, Apple is gaining customers everywhere. 'Marketshare' is a flawed concept because it assumes a unified market of undifferentiated customers. Apple is simply not in the market of commodity devices. It never had any of that market to lose. Claiming that apple is losing those customers is clearly incorrect.

If the story does unfold as it did with Mac/Windows, Apple will again be the clear winner, just as they are in the PC market.

Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it.

Working in corporate and government environments is an Apple free zone.

Lower price competitors have repeatedly caught up and outperformed higher priced vertical companies that make the entire stack. Android is well positioned to do exactly this to Apple over the next decade. Phones and cheaper devices also seem to see this happen repeatedly. Apple's phone division should see a warning in Nokia and RIM, not a comfort.

SGI, Sun, Commodore, Atari, DEC and many others are all defunct. All full stack companies.

Apple and IBM are left. IBM mainframes are extremely difficult to remove. Apple are easier but may survive with enough iOS lock in.

But you'd be very brave to bet on it.

> Apple is not the 'clear winner' in the PC market, they are a small segment of it.

Yet Apple has the most profitable segment of the PC market, they make more profit on PCs than any if their competitors; it turns out Mac-free corp/gov zones are not very profitable.

Apple will keep dominating the high end of even developing markets, their profits will keep rising and they will continue not to be disrupted by Android, who seem to have trouble making money (sans Samsung). I would worry more about HTC going under than Apple.

Corporate and government is profitable. It's just that the profits are shared by a plethora of companies. Apple failed long ago to get a foothold and gave up.

Apple don't dominate the high end of phones by market share any more. They do make more money out of it than anyone else at the moment. Good for shareholders but consumers are largely indifferent to profitability.

If HTC and Samsung went bankrupt Android would still be OK. They'd be replaced.

Sorry - this has nothing to do with the profits being shared by a plethora of companies. Apple receives almost half of the profits in the PC market. The rest is divided between your plethora. Apple chose not to serve the unprofitable part of the market.

Apple have tried to get into corporate environments. They tried to sell Macs to everyone.

Corporate computing is bigger than just buying PCs. Oracle, IBM, service companies, MS, Intel, CA, Cisco and all these companies make masses of money in corporate environments.

Yes, but how are he PC makers doing who serve the corps: say Dell, HP, Lenovo? Unless they make a dash for services, and even that is iffy (HP should have had some advantage here), they are all pretty much toast.

You're right that low price is a great competitive edge, but one can name many now defunct computer makers that were anything but full stack -- Compaq, Gateway, eMachine, Packard Bell, Siemens (the PC maker), Olivetti. As a matter of fact, one can argue that they went under because their products didn't stand out from the competition.

Full stack can be seen as a great advantage. Otherwise Microsoft wouldn't make Surface or acquire Nokia. It all depends on specific business cases.

Non-full stack companies come and go. That's part of the strength. Most people are not fussed if they buy an HP, Sony, Compaq, ASUS, Acer, MSI or whatever for a PC. Android buyers can happily switch between a dozen manufacturers as well.

The point is for general purpose computing full stack was common but is now exceptional. If it was a great advantage surely there would be more full stack companies around.

You seemed to imply that SGI, Sun, etc are gone because they were full stack. I just offered counterexamples of non full stack companies that are also gone. There are simply no evidence that full stack is inherently bad, or vice versa. It's all specific to individual companies.

> Non-full stack companies come and go. That's part of the strength

Or more precisely, that's a benefit of hardware commodity. From the business perspective however, it isn't fun to be a loser, full stack or not.

There is evidence that full stack is hard to keep going. In general computing devices there are only 2 companies left doing it that matter. IBM & Apple.

The non-full stack companies that are gone have been replaced.

The full stack ones have been replaced by combinations of non full stack companies.

New non-full stack companies come in and get big. What new full stack company that matters that has been started in the past decade?

You are contradicting yourself. You say that fill stack companies are hard to keep going and yet you say that non-full stack companies come and go even more easily.

By your logic, non-full stack companies are even harder to keep going.

It's not a contradiction. Both are hard to keep going. Full stack ones are even harder. Hence all but 2 are gone.

The ecosystems for more open systems are also really durable.

Personally, watching for decades the most surprising thing is that MS has kept the desktop rather than losing it to Linux.

Would you say that MS has 'won' the server market because they make more money than any Linux company even though Linux has a largest market share of internet servers?

MS keeping the desktop rather than losing it to Linux contradicts your thesis. You can dismiss it as a 'surprise' or acknowledge that your reasoning doesn't accord with reality.

Apple makes 45% of all profits in the PC market. Nobody else comes close. That isn't a small segment - they are the clear winner.

6% market share is small.

I'm sure you've heard the BMW analogy before...

6% is also false.

There is a word for market share without profits. Failure.

Value is measured in money. Apple creates 45% of the value in the PC industry.

Funny how Windows' profits are not part of the "PC market". I guess it's all about cherrypicking statistics to create a "winner".

We're taking about people who sell PCs, not component vendors. If we include windows, we also should include intel and everyone else in the supply chain. But since this whole topic is about manufacturers who ship complete phones to purchasers, the analogy in the PC market is with companies that ship complete PCs.