Apple pie-charts the smartphone market down to two players and targets #1 with some convenient truths Apple's market power derives not merely from its technology, but from its adeptness at reframing a familiar market to limit the field of competitors. In the most extreme example, Apple portrays its sole competitor as itself. The competitive messaging around MacBook Pro emphasized how it skunked PowerPC notebooks in performance. Later, Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro was sold as far superior to Core Duo MacBook Pro. Apple is 2X faster than Apple, so clearly, the smart money's on Apple. At the press conference at which iPhone's Exchange Server connectivity and software development kit (SDK) were unveiled, Steve Jobs established and reinforced the premise that in eight months, iPhone redefined the entire smartphone market. Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 are now irrelevant, leaving only two relevant players, iPhone and BlackBerry. Given that BlackBerry is old, tacky, and unreliable, enterprises oughtn't waste time trying to prop it up. Out with the old, in with the new. [ Enterprise handsets are a special breed. See "Supersmart phones for extreme mobility" and "iPhone: The $1,975 iPod" ] This mirrors the swipes that Apple used to take at...
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