Dell Streak: Miss. (screen size)
HP Slate: When?
Others?: Nah.
For years, I had the misguided notion that with enough resources, all companies in any given segment can compete with each other. You take a Microsoft and someone like Dell or HP or even IBM for that matter and together, they can do anything. Sure, I was always hopeful that Apple would make a huge investment in corporate IT.
Now? Markets and companies are large enough they can choose a particular market to invest in and hopefully dominate. They can safely choose to ignore certain market entrants How they get there and the choices they make along the way is another story.
If you talk to anyone senior at Microsoft, Dell, HP, or even IBM, they’re going to say that it is the platform that matters. Get customers to adopt major pieces of the platform and just like you in your “dating years’, the rest will come along. It’s not hard to imagine that Microsoft, Dell, and HP stare at Apple’s consumer market share wistfully. Lots of woulda, coulda, shoulda’s happening. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is not happy and hopefully made that clear yesterday. Perhaps HP and Dell feel the same way.
Now, Apple is succeeded in getting to second base. The iPad demonstrated that they can be a platform and they can be taken seriously. What’s scary (or at least should be) to Microsoft, HP, Dell and IBM is that the consumer is still excited. Third base? Maybe it’s not too far away.
Who is really to blame? Microsoft. What’s the real problem? When you have a mature company like Microsoft or IBM with lots of long term senior folks still hanging out, there’s little incentive for risk. Let’s face it, there are LOTS of millionaires happily camping out at some of these companies. (Quite frankly, who can blame them.)
How about some woulda, coulda, shouldas?
Woulda: Unified Microsoft consumer platform with Win7, a great partnership with MP3.com or some other likely music store as well as a strong partnership with Amazon for books. HP and Dell.
Coulda: Killed lots of overhead in Win7, came out with a consumer-only version with limited networking. The investment? Perhaps $500M and possibly up to $1B
Shoulda: Spent the money. Long term, there is far too much to lose. Do you envision there ever being a time when they can catch up?
