Apple’s Game Changer, Downloading Now

06. Dec, 2009

Apple’s Game Changer, Downloading Now is an article that appeared in the Sunday, 6 December 2009 edition of the New York Times. The article written by Jenna Wortham focuses on the success that Apple has had with the Apple iPhone App Store. She writes,

As the App Store evolves from a kitschy catalog of novelty applications into what analysts and aficionados describe as a platform that is rapidly transforming mobile computing and telephony, it is changing the goals and testing the patience of developers, bolstering sales of the Apple motherships the applications ride upon — the iPhone and iPodTouch — and causing Apple’s competitors to overhaul their product lines and business models. It even threatens to open chinks in Apple’s own corporate armor.”

The App Store is a brilliant marketing and software development success. It isn’t a new idea, but the great integration with the iPhone and the energized development community which has been able to make money (millions in some cases) building and selling simple iPhone Apps is a credit to Phillip Schiller and the marketing team at Apple.

However, the other interesting thing about the App Store is how anemic the competitive response has been from the rest of the smartphone market. The other players in the market are falling father behind Apple’s overwhelming army of independent developers every day. The market competitors need to take a page from Sun Tzu,

In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack – the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle – you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?

It is easy to see why the other smartphone companies would want to remain separate, clearly a vertically integrated smartphone product that controls hardware and software has the best change of differentiation and control of its market. That assumes that a market can still be controlled. At this point Apple’s independent developers are releasing hundreds of new applications a month. The App Store interface which was brilliantly conceived is buckling under the complexity of properly marketing the thousands of applications.

Apple’s competitors need to adopt Sun Tzu’s indirect approach. What is needed now is some collaboration around application development standards for smartphones as well as conversion utilities to allow a successful iPhone application to run on other smartphones. Apple’s competitors need to draft behind the success created by Apple with independent developers, while still retaining their independent.

The battle may be lost to create a new vertically integrated software and hardware platform. But, smartphone manufacturer’s can still own the market. They need to be better than Apple at everything else. That will mean:

Manage customer service internally versus handing it over to wireless providers.
A customer service strategy that is simple and comprehensive like Apple Care.
Focus on product development that will yield a line of devices that operate similarly and don’t vary in the interface.
Price the device competitively with an eye toward growth within the product line versus planning on a short product life-cycle.
Create a vibrant developer community based on open standards where developers can leverage their time investment across more than one smartphone developer

Apple may have won big, but it doesn’t mean that buyers will never change. They need a reason to change, and it has to look as good as what they have, plus a little more. More from Sun Tzu,