> The conditions that happened for the collapse of the pre-IBM PC market don’t > exist now, and that collapse was—if not unique—certainly very unusual. > There’s no reason to think that there *will* be only one winner in the > smartphone market, one winner in the tablet device market, and so on. There > may be just one or two market leaders, but the iPhone doesn’t have to “fail” > for Android to succeed and vice-versa. And if those two are the market leaders > (likely but not a given) that doesn’t mean that WebOS, Windows Phone 7, > Blackberry, Symbian and Meego are doomed. Well put. Recent history proves that Apple does best when there are more than a few competitors in the market. When they go one-on-one with a company, like say, Microsoft, they lose, because people see it as an all-or-nothing proposition. But as long as there are four or five healthy players in the market, as there are now in Mobile, Apple can take a nice large chunk of the most profitable customers and make out just fine. The iPod never killed all other music players outright, after all. There were always several alternatives that fought over what remained of the cheap end of the market.

I agree very strongly with Martin when he says that compatibility issues don’t really exist the way they used to, as well. Email, text documents, photos, music, video: Most of these file formats are predominantly open standards now. So there’s little reason to feel that you NEED to have an Android or an iOS device. You could switch back and forth with minimal fuss. And if work mandates one platform, but you use another at home, no big deal.

I think Android has proven that it’s here to stay. Whether or not Google can turn Android into a profitable business for its software developers, or whether or not it even cares about that, is yet to be seen. I have a hard time believing that Android can take a serious chunk of market share away from Apple without a MAJOR turnaround in the quality of available apps. (Notice, to date, all of Google’s growth has been at the expense of Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, etc. Platforms with even crappier available software—Apple is still growing market share.) My hunch is that Google isn’t supporting app development in any meaningful way because it would rather see all apps go to the cloud, the only place where Google ever makes money on ads. But I’ve been hearing that all computing is headed to the browser for almost a decade now, and it hasn’t happened yet.

Without any really good apps (talking quality, not quantity here), Google is going to have a tremendously hard time getting people to give up the iPhone in favor of Android. And until that happens, you can’t dominate the market. Remember, the Zune did a great job of killing a lot of lesser music players; but it never put a dent in Apple’s sales. So far, that’s a closer comparison to iOS and Android than Mac and PC.

> Is that their problem? Has Google become a bunch of technology spammers? Is their strategy to simply flood the world with as many ideas as possible in the hopes that one or two percent of them will become hits without any further work? > > At one end of the Innovation Spectrum, there are the companies that make little novelty lights and fans that plug into your USB port. At the other end are the truly important companies that are willing to eat it for years because they’re certain of two things: that the technology they’ve developed will inevitably redefine its product category or even define a brand new one, and that neither of those things can happen unless a large company is persistent, vocal, and consistent. > > It’s a sloppily-defined spectrum and there’s no numerical grading. But with Wednesday’s announcement, I think Google nudged itself closer to the novelty-fan group. As usual, Andy Ihnatko nails it. Google really is throwing everything at the wall and hoping at least a few things stick. Which is a terribly inefficient way to innovate.

The bigger issue I have with this approach is that it’s the really good ideas— the ones that are hard to push forward but that could really change the world if done right—that end up getting lost in this methodology. Wave was a huge gamble; it was trying to replace deeply entrenched technologies with something better, which is brave. When Apple does a product like that (the Mac, the iPhone) it succeeds, because it believes and SUPPORTS the product with everything it has. And the engineers and designers at Apple know that they always have that support once a product is launched.

I have a feeling that pretty soon, the really talented thinkers at Google are going to start resenting the lack of support from the powers that be, and they’ll move on to better things somewhere else. And then Google will be left with copycat technologies like Android. A cheap imitator that makes money through volume and cut-throat prices. In essence, another Microsoft.

> Ahead of the event, some observers speculated that RIM would announce a new smartphone that includes support for Flash. In an April [interview with Fox News](http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4148785/adobe-ceo-on-creative-suite-5-and-apple), Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said RIM would bring Flash support to its devices in the second half of this year. > > At the event Tuesday, RIM executives declined to provide a specific date for when BlackBerry devices would include Flash support. A spokesman however said that work was under way with Adobe to optimize the multimedia platform for RIM’s devices. > > The companies are trying to optimize Flash 10.1 for BlackBerry hardware so devices provide good battery life, performance and efficiency on wireless data transfers, said Tyler Lessard, vice president of global alliances and developer relations at RIM. > > “What’s really important… is to get it right. Flash and Flash video have very specific hardware, CPU and memory requirements,” Lessard said Yes. Flash and Flash video DO have specific hardware, CPU, and Memory requirements. And they’re all too high for any current mobile device to handle. Which is why Flash is dead as a platform.

So let’s remind ourselves again: Flash STILL doesn’t exist on any mobile platform. There’s a beta for Android that doesn’t work well, and that’s it. No shipping product anywhere, on any mobile device, more than three years after the original iPhone.

So, then, why was Apple supposed to allow Flash on the iPhone again?

> Google intended the messaging program, launched in 2009, to be a near-replacement for e-mail, which it said had grown tired. > > But on Wednesday, the company announced that it is shuttering the project by the end of the year because it didn’t have traction with consumers. Again, I’ll ask the obvious: If Apple were to dump a brand new product in less than a year after it had shipped, how different would the press reaction be? Where would Apple’s stock be the next morning?

This is the second official FAIL for Google in the past few months. Nexus One and now Wave. What’s next? How’s Buzz doing? Where are all those Android tablets that were talked about at CES this past January?

Google is starting to look more and more like Microsoft every day. One or two hit products, and a whole lot of stuff that goes nowhere.

For the record, I thought Wave was a great idea. It was taking on a challenge that was probably far greater in scope than most people realize. So success for Wave would have been a MAJOR accomplishment. It’s not every day you change the way people communicate, after all. But after a few sessions with Wave, it became apparent that it was suffering from the same issues that most Google products suffer from; that is, they are designed by people who don’t understand normal people. Wave would only be useful if other people started using it, too. So the UI was essential. If Google wanted Wave to succeed, it needed to FOCUS on getting the user adoption moving, first by nailing the UI, and second by promoting the crap out of it. But focus is the one thing Google desperately lacks right now.

GMail succeeded because it had Google’s full attention. Wave got nothing but an initial press event.

And, for god sakes, stop making me use the browser for everything.