CEO's should learn to avoid making heavy-handed predictions about Apple's future. Obviously, Michael Dell has a bit of egg left on his face from 10 years ago but Steve Ballmer's iPhone-related prognostication (as immortalized in JW's sig) has become laughable far quicker than Dell's flub. Here's an expanded excerpt from
the original USA Today story:
Quote
There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
Now, he got one thing right. Apple's getting around 2% or 3% of the total mobile phone market right now... but he was way off on the rest of his numbers. Far from grabbing 80% of the mobile phone market with Windows Mobile, Microsoft is lagging in Third Place behind RIM and Apple... both of whom manufacture their own devices. This seems to be an ongoing theme for Microsoft partners who attempt anything except x86 machines. Microsoft licenses their software to dozens of partner companies whose combined market share numbers (let alone individual sales) utterly fail to put them in front.
And the iPhone's relative success is in spite of shortcomings which prevent people like myself from even buying one.
Give the iPhone Exchange support, 3G support and free it up for use with other carriers (still another 4 1/2 years to go on that one) and Steve Jobs is going to have enough power to further amplify that other Steve's folly.
