Why the iPhone will remain on top

The emerging smartphone technology has really been ramping up. This 2010, the race to the top for world domination will be fiercier than ever. The competition is much like racing cars. I can also remember the time when Microsoft stepped up the competition on Palm with it’s PocketPC platform for the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) market back then.

First of all, I want to make it clear why I consider the iPhone on top. I have always believe that when people start comparing smartphones (or connected phones as I call it here), most of them compare apples with oranges. They forget that the iPhone has only been around for about 3 years while competition has been at it for a while. Also, the iPhone for all purposes is a single model/brand mobile phone while it’s competitors offer several models that are sometimes inappropriately consolidated into one for comparison purposes which I consider lame.

So for purposes of this post, let’s just say that I’m talking about the 2010 lap race and the smartphone competition is still a long way to go. With that out of the way, let me continue why it’s bound to remain on top (well at least until it’s competition wakes up).

Like car racing, winning depends on a lot of factors like fuel, the power and capabilities of the cars, the skill of the driver and who is in front at the moment. Let’s take a look at fuel. It’s represents the resources of the companies backing the mobile phone. If you take a look at the major players (Nokia, Microsoft, Google, RIM, Apple). From a Cash on Hand point of view Apple is on top at about $25B last time I looked. Nokia is nowhere near at 10.62B while RIM is not even on the top 15 list I read. This sure gives Apple a lot of staying power and enough money for acquisitions it might need for product development to be on top.

Car power and capabilities is akin to the smartphone features. Currently I would compare the following smartphones — iPhone, Motorola Milestone (or maybe the upcoming Nexus One), Palm Pre, Nokia’s N900 and whatever RIM would come up as it’s Blackberry connected phone. Here’s where I see Microsoft and RIM should really step up. From Apple’s experience, it’s not about power and features but marketing and brand management. RIM and Microsoft should really put their name behind a flagship product to compete with the iPhone. Nokia knows it and it’s the reason behind the Maemo / N900 product. Google realizes this that’s why it’s coming up with the Nexus One. Samsung maybe starting to realize it to stay on the game and maybe that’s why it has come up with Bada. The key is the marketing and brand management that will support a healthy ecosystem for a single mobile platform.

I have no doubt about it. Apple is definitely ahead with the start of the 2010 lap race and is accelerating fast with no signs of deccelerating. In fact if that rumored iSlate is to come out this year and it has at least a 3G radio and GPS, the iPhone platform will continue it’s acceleration.

Now, can the competition overtake the iPhone? Using the racing analogy, competition definitely needs more acceleration!

The Android platform definitely needs something better than the Verizon Droid! We are talking of world domination here and not just the US Market. I’m almost sure it’s the reason why Google is coming out with the Nexus One. IMHO, Android is it’s closest competition. But the Android Team has a lot of things to do.

For instance, the Android Team of Google has yet to offer it’s developer ecosystem a way to earn from selling apps if they live outside of the several countries allowed. If Google Checkout is not up to it, then maybe it should look at PayPal which is a far more reaching payment system. What use is an open mobile platform if the developers in it’s ecosystem can not earn anything directly like the Apple App Store.

Make a flagship mobile phone globally available and competitively priced. This is where Google has a lot of work to do. Apple already has a distribution system while Google depends on HTC. Well here’s one personal experience. I can go to several places to try out a working demo of the iPhone in my country to checkout how it works. On the other hand, I recently went to an HTC store to take a look at the HTC Hero and the sales guy told me that they had it on stock but couldn’t show it to me — well Google/HTC, how would you expect to sell a mobile phone when people in the store can even show a working phone (MAJOR FAIL)! Maybe HTC doesn’t want to sell Android mobile phones as much as the Windows Mobile phones available in the HTC Store.

All in all, I don’t see any of the other major mobile platform competitors accelerating any faster than the iPhone right now. Their drivers are either too cautious or just don’t have enough resources?

At the end of the day it’s all about make a smartphone available for people to buy and use. Global domination means global distribution and a global app ecosystem. Something the Apple iPhone have for quite a while now and for others to overtake they need to step up and accelerate or they will get lost in the dust!