IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Hi Chris,
Thanks for adding the "OS" component. It is indeed a vital aspect, albeit not necessarily in Apple's favor.
I think we can conclude that mobile phones are both purchased on impulse ("brand/lifestyle") as well as for their features.

The lifestyle aspect of a device is typically short-lived (the Swatch effect). It primarily is decided by the "trim" of the product, and thus can easily be copied. Prada just announced a lifestyle touchscreen phone in the European market that looks as sexy as the iPhone and is available this month. By the time the iPhone is released in Europe, a design upgrade will be needed to stay ahead of the numerous other lifestyle phones.

Steady revenue growth can be expected for phones that allow a variety of software solutions: Dashboards, navigation, games, etcetera. Here, Apple will need to compete with giant Microsoft. Even though the new Vista release was not received as a major break-through, its impact on the market is huge. Where the iPhone has been applauded for its design and originality, the fact remains that Microsoft managed to create the first new PC operating system in ten years.
Vista has now shed all of its DOS legacy while maintaining or improving the look and feel and compatibility with the older systems. This is the hardest thing to do when you're developing software, especially if it's over a five year period with tens of thousands of developers. Already the compatibility with the feature creep of the XP platform must have given these developers nightmares. The result is impressive.
Rather than the 1 million iPhone customers that Apple targets, there will be around 200 million Vista users in the first year of its release. Guess where the third party developers will concentrate on?

To bring it more in perspective I've done a completely non-representative poll amongst the teenage sons and daughters of my friends and family: The vast majority of them is looking forward to the Microsoft Zune phone, as it is expected to be a perfect mix of lifestyle and applications. The Zune operating system will be competing with the Apple touch-OS X phone platform. Most teenager complaints about the iPod relate to its mandatory connection to one PC and iTunes, cumbersome firmware  upgrade, and its poor batteries. Even though the iPhone has a wifi interface, it will only be able to load music via the iTunes PC-interface. We'll find out about the battery quality of the iPhone soon enough.

Microsoft is creating a series of new media devices around its Zune operating system. Several suppliers (Samsung, Moterola) are apparently already working with the Zune OS plaform. Add the experience of the XBox360 games and the 200 million Vista users next year, and you can imagine what the size of market will be for Microsoft when they announce a smartphone that seamlessly will link into Vista and allows downloads over a wifi link. With most of the iTunes software being resident on Windows machines, it won't be very tough for Microsoft to deliver on what is rumored to be the introduction campaign for the new devices: Scan for all stored iTunes songs and offer a free download of all these songs on the Zune phone/player.

For sure we'll have lots of exciting new discussion material later this year when the iPhone and/or Zune will be released. For now, I'd like to go focus again on current telecommunication events. Thank you and everyone else who has shared their insights in this iPhone blog sequence.
Gert