Smart Phone Wars: Apple vs. RIM vs. ...the Android Operating System?
By Paul Carton April 1, 2008
The release of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone rocked the cellular industry last year, and some analysts are now asking if the pending release of Google's (GOOG) Android cellular phone operating system may have a similar impact.
The answer: Not likely.
According to a March 17-24 ChangeWave survey of 3,597 consumers, the smart phone industry continues to transform into a two-horse race between Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone.
While RIM currently dominates smart phone sales among consumers, the Apple iPhone has had tremendous success and continues showing momentum in this market. Meanwhile, the longstanding woes of Palm (PALM) and its Treo are accelerating.
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I haven't bought a Blackberry or an iPhone, and I probably won't buy the Google version, either. What gets my goat with these products is how they're not content to sell me a device, but instead demand that I subscribe to a "service" provided by someone they're in bed with, and pay a monthly fee for the rest of my life when I'd be perfectly content to do without mobile email and just have an address book.
It seems to me that every company in the consumer market is drooling at the thought of getting an annuity from every product they sell, be it a "service contract" or an "extended warranty" or email forwarding to a cell phone. Nobody wants to sell _things_ anymore: they want to attach themselves to my bank account and automatically withdraw tribute like an electronic leach that I can never remove.
I'm still stuck in the "dark ages" of having a separate Palm Pilot and an ordinary cell phone, but I'm content with it because I'll be damned if I contribute to someone's retirement annuity just to get an address book built into the phone.
Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
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