Flashback

A post this morning on Engadget about the similarity between the most recent ad for the iPad, and one for the original Apple Newton gave me a profound sense of déjà vu.

It’s far from unusual to see Apple ripping off others when it comes to spots, and the same is true in reverse. But copying itself? Head on past the break to catch the similarities between Cupertino’s freshest iPad commercial and an eerily familiar Newton ad from yesteryear — something tells us the former will make a somewhat more indelible mark on the world than the latter, though.

Back in the mid-90′s, more than fifteen years ago, I was one of the pioneers of tablets with digital cellular connectivity: working in New Zealand for what is now Vodafone New Zealand we put together the Apple Newton with the Nokia DataCard and the Nokia 2110 to provide the first predecessor for today’s smart phones; this was even before the very first Nokia Communicator.

Anyway, take a look at the two videos:

Love the data, hate the graphic

One of the key themes we're focused on at the moment is the multilateral asymmetric contest amongst major platform players (Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia in particular), device vendors (Apple, RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Motorola, HTC in particular), service providers (Google, Apple, Amazon in particular) and network operators (Verizon, Vodafone, FT Orange and so on). There's some interesting data from Silicon Alley Insider illustrating the size of the stakes...

The cash resources of some of the major players

While the numbers are interesting, I have to confess I hate the graphic... It looks like an area chart, but it's actually a line chart. Tufte's head would explode...

And I'd love to see the analysis extended to include Nokia, RIM, Samsung and so on. And in this context, who cares about Intel, other than ARM and Qualcomm?

Voda' phones

One of my pet peeves is when people who should know better mis-spell Vodafone and Vodaphone. Shortening it to Voda is OK, but makes me think of the Star Wars Jedi Knight - and then the Weird Al song. Anyway, one of the things that makes competition in high-tech so interesting and challenging is that it is often not just 'horizontal'.

Let me illustrate this with an example from DigiTimes this morning:

MediaTek and Vodafone have jointly announced that Vodafone has selected MediaTek chipsets for two new devices. The strategic partnership with MediaTek provides Vodafone with the opportunity to offer the Vodafone 340 camera phone at a very affordable price as well as its first entry level, low-cost touch screen device for prepaid customers – the Vodafone 541, Vodafone said.

Vodafone 541

This is one of eight Vodafone branded 'phones launched today.

'Horizontal' competition is two similar businesses competing with one another for market share:

• Vodafone competing with FT-Orange in the UK


• Verizon competing with AT&T in the US

'Vertical' competition is when businesses compete for value capture, their share of the pie, rather than for market share amongst customers. Here Vodafone is partnering with MediaTek for chipsets, but effectively competing with other mobile phone vendors, such as Nokia, for some of the value created.

Competition can in fact be 'diagonal' or asymmetric, when it is amongst businesses that have fundamentally different scope of activities, or business models. Think Google giving away stuff free to generate ad revenue, competing with Microsoft's packaged applications business.

Much of the competition in the mobile and broadband sector now takes this form; watch this space for more commentary...