Modroneman

April 21, 2011 at 11:45am

Dude. Seriously! Whenever I read any articles by Paul Lilly, all I see are grammar errors. It's really annoying and takes away from his otherwise great articles. Seriously... Get a better editor!

"You won't catch many power users users trading in their gaming notebook or desktop for a tablet PC."

someuid

April 21, 2011 at 9:41am

This is where Apple's closed ecosystem benefits them.  They can quickly combine their market research, hardware and software divisions, and sales channels to put a product in their customer's hands.

We, meanwhile, are futsing around, waiting for the major OS houses and hardware manufacturers and integration houses to get something out.

For a while, Apple's closed ecosystem fought against them - they did not have the massive backing of 3rd party hardware and software companies churning out products that allowed Apple's products to penetrate markets that Apple themselves could not get around to or simply didn't notice or care to support.  Windows did and it took Windows to heights Apple could only dream of.

It seems Apple has caught the whole Windows world with their pants down.  Our key players, being established and looking to hold on to their market share, have failed to see the possibilities of new products and markets.

As a result, we all sit here, waiting for Intel and Microsoft to come up with something, with Google kicking something out, and Motorola enjoying their relationship with Verizon to try and screw us with data plans rather than just put the goods in our hands at prices we like.

Whether you hate Apple or not, they are kicking our tails in the mobile market.  Microsoft can't get their Zune/WindowsCE/WindowsMobile/WindowsPhone to do anything but fail.  Intel can't get their heads out of their butts and develop a real CPU/GPU/chipset combo to take on Apple.  HTC, Motorola, et all can't seem to combine the right hardware and the right software without getting in bed with Verizon and hobbling our devices with lockdowns and costly plans.  Lightweights Nvidia and ARM are considered risky bets by the integration houses because they don't want to piss off Intel and Microsoft, or can't due to lock-in contracts.

I say: go Apple!  We need a good meltdown in the Windows World to remind Otellini, Balmer, et all that they best get cracking on innovating and stop worrying about tracking every penny of profit or coming up with wonderful excuses on why it isn't their fault they don't have great sales.  It is time for some creative destruction to burn out the old fuddy duddies and stop playing catch-up with Apple.

Don't haul out your "look at my Android - it is sooo much better".  It's a freakin' phone and that's that.  It's a one off product, locked down by the wireless carriers, with nothing but minor improvements in the pipeline.  It is not a sutiable challenger to the empire of consumer devices and services Apple is building.