[Elephant_Canyon]

When I go to buy cereal, how many options do I have? Hundreds?

When I go to buy a smartphone, I'm supposed to have...TWO??

Here's a simplified explanation of the market forces behind that dichotomy:

Say you wanted to make your own, homemade breakfast cereal from raw materials. If you have a functional kitchen, as the majority of people in the 3rd world do, it would take you a few hours to whip up a small batch from off-the-shelf components.

Now, say you wanted to make your own, homemade smartphone from raw materials. It would be pretty close to impossible, because you don't have the microchip fabrication or component assembly facilities to do it. On top of that, you'd have to write your own OS from scratch, which is a product of years of work for a large team of software engineers. The barriers to entry are astronomically high.

[bakron1]

Just read a recent article saying Microsoft is pulling the plug and Windows mobile. I really don’t like just having two smartphone OS options, but that’s what the market is dictating in 2017.

[Tim-ANC]

To continue on my mini, post BB10 tangent for the day....

I don't care how expensive platforms are. I still view it as a failure of Capitalism that we are only allowed TWO choices, essentially "This" or "That".

When I go to buy cereal, how many options do I have? Hundreds?

When I go to buy a smartphone, I'm supposed to have...TWO??

I get it, market reasons, expensive, monopoly type practices and collusion (likely) between carriers and the major OS makers, I still feel this is an unacceptable situation for market freedom.

Posted via CB10

Cereal: But aren't their really only 2 choices? Post and Kellogg with the various off name brands actually owned by them.

Capitalism: Its alive and well. Market forces have dictated the large majority of the mobile consumers prefer one or the other in a certain price range. I'm sure if we were all willing to pay $5000 USD for a BB10 or WM10 device. BlackBerry and MS would perk up.

[Tsepz_GP]

Lol, I knew Windows Phone was dead the day it arrived. I just never understood what their offering was vs. Android and iOS, that were already growing so rapidly when WP arrived.

I am so happy that MS finally saw the light and they will now develop quality apps and other content for Android and iOS, I am incredibly excited 😁

As a Samsung user, MS and Samsung have long been working together including on Samsungs DeX station which I got over the weekend allowing me to turn my phone into a Desktop, and I am truly blown away by it.

With MS now more focused than ever on building quality experiences, we ALL stand to gain so much. Many of us still use MS products at work and home, and now those products will be connecting ever easier and better with out Android and iOS Devices. 😁

Great news!

[app_Developer]

To continue on my mini, post BB10 tangent for the day....

I don't care how expensive platforms are. I still view it as a failure of Capitalism that we are only allowed TWO choices, essentially "This" or "That".

When I go to buy cereal, how many options do I have? Hundreds?

When I go to buy a smartphone, I'm supposed to have...TWO??

I get it, market reasons, expensive, monopoly type practices and collusion (likely) between carriers and the major OS makers, I still feel this is an unacceptable situation for market freedom.

Posted via CB10

Why assume collusion when the simple obvious answer stares us in the face: the high fixed cost of an OS.

[Invictus0]

To continue on my mini, post BB10 tangent for the day....

I don't care how expensive platforms are. I still view it as a failure of Capitalism that we are only allowed TWO choices, essentially "This" or "That".

When I go to buy cereal, how many options do I have? Hundreds?

When I go to buy a smartphone, I'm supposed to have...TWO??

I get it, market reasons, expensive, monopoly type practices and collusion (likely) between carriers and the major OS makers, I still feel this is an unacceptable situation for market freedom.

Posted via CB10

You can still choose from a Sailfish or Tizen device if iOS and Android aren't for you. Depending on where you live you might not find them in retail stores but they are available online.

[kvndoom]

or, you know, people just didn't like what WM10 or BB10 had to offer. sometimes it's not a conspiracy or even a complex answer.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I can't even begin to tell you though, re: your comment "how dumb" etc, how many people have seen my Passport, gaped at it, inquired about it, and then when I ask them, "Well, why do you have an iPhone?" the answer is usually either A) I don't know, my Mom has one, my friends have it, etc OR B) I don't like Android / Can't use Android.

This doesn't include whatever sizable percentage of people really do love Apple products, and this doesn't say anything pro or con about them, but it IS a pretty simple example of advertising penetration and what's perceived as "Cool" or Valuable in a given culture. Not a lot of smarts in either of those, necessarily.

BB and MS have those users too. "I've always carried a BB" or "I use MS for everything." You'll get some of that on every platform, and no one is discounting the effectiveness of advertising, especially Apple's excellent advertising... BUT you have to have a product with broad consumer appeal in order for advertising to work on something as complex as a smartphone, and that means apps, services, and support. Niche products don't have those things in abundance, and advertising doesn't solve those problems.

Things that consumers were willing to forgive in 2008-2010, when smartphones were just being widely adopted and there was clearly a lot of new ground being covered, cannot be excused in 2015 and on when the competition is mature and has incredible width and depth of support in the apps, services, and support categories.

That's why I've said, over and over, that the smartphone race happened between 2007 and 2010/2011, and by 2011, the checkered flag was waved, the winners stood on the podium, and the cars still out on the track had become irrelevant. And BB hadn't even gotten their car TO the track at that point (MS had barely gotten theirs across the start line to take their first lap with WinPhone7). To hold any illusions that it could win was to be in denial - which is why so many people, including even CBK, thought that BB's obvious choice was to use Android as early as 2009. It was obvious even then that developers had chosen.

Even if BB had showed up in a supercar in 2013, the race was still long over, but BB's "car" would still not make it around the track reliably until 2014, and as a result, BB lost a ton of money and value, was plummeting towards bankruptcy, and couldn't even find a buyer when it was forced to put itself up for sale. Without Fairfax's loans ($1.25B) to bridge the gap, BB wouldn't even exist today.

As far as people seeing your phone and saying "wow, neat!", none of that matters if they don't go out and buy the phone themselves. I find a lot of things interesting that I have no intention or desire to own myself, and you'll find that a lot of people are that way. Even if they had bought it, as soon as they realized they couldn't go to the stock app store and download their favorite apps, most people would simply return the phone and buy something else, which is even MORE expensive for the seller - and why more or better advertising wouldn't have saved BB10 or WinPhone.

[thurask]

Why assume collusion when the simple obvious answer stares us in the face: the high fixed cost of an OS.

You can't have anything stare you in the face if your head is buried in the sand.

[Soulstream]

I can't even begin to tell you though, re: your comment "how dumb" etc, how many people have seen my Passport, gaped at it, inquired about it, and then when I ask them, "Well, why do you have an iPhone?" the answer is usually either A) I don't know, my Mom has one, my friends have it, etc OR B) I don't like Android / Can't use Android.

This doesn't include whatever sizable percentage of people really do love Apple products, and this doesn't say anything pro or con about them, but it IS a pretty simple example of advertising penetration and what's perceived as "Cool" or Valuable in a given culture. Not a lot of smarts in either of those, necessarily.

Posted via CB10

You are just showing what your smartphone can do, but not its limitations. If you actually gave a brand new Passport to that person (I said brand new as to not include snap or any workaround for android apps), they would ditch it pretty fast when they saw their workflow would be disrupted pretty badly by missing apps.

That is the same reason why Samsung doesn't ditch Android for their own Tizen OS. Samsung has the brand power to get people to buy such phones, but that is the easy part. Having customers actually keep the phone and not return it the second they realize all their apps/settings are not there is pretty hard.

[TGR1]

To continue on my mini, post BB10 tangent for the day....

I don't care how expensive platforms are. I still view it as a failure of Capitalism that we are only allowed TWO choices, essentially "This" or "That".

When I go to buy cereal, how many options do I have? Hundreds?

When I go to buy a smartphone, I'm supposed to have...TWO??

I get it, market reasons, expensive, monopoly type practices and collusion (likely) between carriers and the major OS makers, I still feel this is an unacceptable situation for market freedom.

Posted via CB10

You are not “being allowed” to have only two choices. There is nothing preventing you from buying a Tizen or Sailfish or NewOS phone, for example, if they are commercially available.

What do you feel would be “acceptable for market freedom”? What is market freedom? To be able to buy the phone you want from available selection? For OEMs to be free to make phones of their choosing? For you to be free to buy the phone you want, that no OEM wants to make because they see little to no value?

The old saw “it’s nothing personal” absolutely applies. What it comes down to is that Apple and Google have been relentless in driving adoption of their platforms, with generally sound business models, and in the process completely changed expectations of what a smartphone can be. The usage patterns have changed dramatically. An awful lot of phone makers have bit the dust in the past years. It’s a brutal market. And to be honest, those BlackBerry features that are most valuable will be adopted by surviving players. If they haven’t, it’s because they aren’t considered viable in the current market. It’s nothing personal.