business today apple v amazon


There are many reasons to mourn the larcenously early death of Steve Jobs. Aside from, and this said in no way that of an Apple fanboy, the curtailing to the world of indeed his creative genius and vision, it is hugely disappointing to think that Jobs is not around to front up to the fact that the tablet arena that it owns with an iPad- sized iron grip is about to get its first real competitor. And even better, the duelling ground for what is surely to be a battle royal with Amazon will be the TV market or more specifically the second screen arena. Joe O’Halloran reports.


These are the tablet market in general is much older than most people think and, conversely, Apple's presence is much shorter than generally regarded. Let us consider the first fact: there is


absolutely nothing new about media tablets nor indeed their close cousins net books and laptops from which tablets essentially came. There is absolutely, utterly nothing contemporary about touch-screen graphics technology, the defining characteristic of a tablet. So given that all the components were in place, why didn't anyone else own the market like Apple now does? In what seems like a very rhetorical question almost as soon as the very words were typed, how did the likes of Nokia, Samsung, HP/Compaq, Sony or even/especially RIM not take first, second, third, maybe fourth mover advantage? Even though the aforementioned


Apple v Amazon: T


TV and video battle hots up


here are two rather odd facts about the tablet markets that in themselves serve to explain why a company such as Apple has come to dominate the market sector.


[The] Kindle Fire overall proposition [is] a real TV service running on a device whose form factor - not just price - takes it away from face to face competition with the iPad.


have all made world-class products they all have to their name absolute dogs of products and/or at least a few times in their history indulged in making technology in search of an application. The roll call of thwarted, aborted


tablets would be some tableau of naming and shaming. That none of these begin with a lower case version of the ninth letter of the alphabet is not down to provenance. Apple knew what the iPad could do and for whom it could do it. It also looked good, conveying all three axioms of successful product design, namely form, fit and function. Apply those three criteria to the iPad's competitors, before and after launch, and you get some idea as to why the device was so successful. It can be argued that in the post


Newton era, or certainly iPod plus years, Apple has never luxuriated in such whimsy. Totally at odds with its perceived laid back Californian cool, Apple is a steely-eyed missile man taking aim at profitability in a manner that would make some aggressive Wall St traders seem like hippies in


6 l ibe l november/december 2011 l www.ibeweb.com


comparison. You only have to look at how it makes sure that essential components manufacturers get with the programme: in its world, Apple knows and supports those people who'll make its products world class. As well as offering world-leading


design with similarly first rank components, Jobs also realised -and the fact that this has to be mentioned speaks volumes for the consumer electronics industry -that you had to market the product ruthlessly and lavishly and then make it as easy as possible to buy. And also make the content that it runs as easy to acquire. You may well ask how, Apple's


aforementioned talents notwithstanding, such dominance came about. Well just think of the competition. The vast majority of iPad competitors are sold by IT companies like computers or phones. Wrong. It's actually quite hard to buy something else. Even the few who get this point seem to struggle with the concept. Additionally, when it comes to content, think of this iTunes vs Android marketplace. Exactly. Don't even mention the BlackBerry equivalent.


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