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How Big Will the iPhone Become?
palewook writes "Combine the best elements of an iPod with a BlackBerry's addictive usefulness, and you may just get Apple's Next Big Thing. Around 2009, when the lower cost version of iPhone appears, Business Week believes the yearly market for iPhones could be over 10 billion dollars a year. Its an interesting prediction; if those numbers come to pass, iPhone could become a bigger source of revenue than the traditional iPod. 'The answer may not come until 2009. By then, Apple should have begun creating lower-cost iPhone variants to reach consumers scared off by the introductory $499 price. It also will probably have moved into overseas markets and cut deals with more carriers to utilize higher-speed wireless networks. So while most analysts look for Apple to sell around 3 million units this year and 10 to 12 million in 2008, many figure that 20 million will move in 2009.'"
I doubt that iPhones are going to sync with Corp. email so easily. The reason Blackberry has such a great sync with corporate email is because businesses have their own blackberry management servers (I don't know if the servers live at RIM or at the the local company's site, though) that tie into the corporate email servers. iPhone is not being launched as a business product, or as with a business 'edition'.
iPhone will probably have POP3 access to mailboxes like most current smartphones do.
I think small business/independent businessmen could use iPhone no problem; but they have to manage their own contacts and keep their own address book. Corporate Joe working at a firm with more than 100 users will probably just continue to use the solution handed down to him via his company; and the only decent enterprise system right now is RIMs.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Using an iPhone may indeed let me leave the MBPro in the office much of the time. For these types of users, iPhone makes a BIG difference with the iphone in a pocket rather than a ten pound bag with charger and extension cord. People hereabouts have complained about only 1 cell provider, no 3G, no 20 gig memory, no EU sales, but to fully debug everything before going global, Apple has picked it right to limit it to N. America. Obviously the rest of the options will come, as the 3rd party applications will. Hey, the phone is not even out, and everyone has statements about various forms of failure. If you want to see failures, take a look at all the losing products from MS over the last 10 years. MS has existed profitably because of two long standing products, and those financed the losses on all the "new" products.
Do all of the 'bad for business' arguments really boil down to issues with MS proprietary stuff?
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Until last week I would never have dreamed of owning an iPod or iPhone now, I am seriously considering the iPhone. What caused this change? My daughter graduated and for a graduation present, I bought her a 30GB iPod. I've always felt that while Apple products have some unique features that they were overpriced and not all that much better than their other-brand or no-brand counterparts. I've never been one to pay extra for style or "bling" and that is exactly what I thought Apple brought to the party. Still my daughter was celebrating a major accomplishment, she wanted an iPod and I wanted to give her a special present for her big day.
The iPod surprised me. I was impressed with virtually everything about it. I liked the simple controls. The sound clarity was top notch. The screen was crisp and clear. Even the battery charged quickly! "Fit and finish" were awesome. I went out to the iTunes store and bought Alice Cooper's "Schools Out" and made that the first song put on the iPod (a symbolic gesture); even that was faster and far easier than I expected! In little time at all I had 500+ songs on it (and told her the rest of her CD collection was up to her to put on).
Now, I'm a believer. While paying several hundred bucks for a tiny electronic object that is nothing more than an entertainment device still feels kind of steep, I can finally understand why many (including my daughter) like it so much. When I started seeing the iPhone commercials, I was very impressed and really think that Apple may just be the company with the experience and foresight to actually build the right all-inclusive portable device for communications and entertainment. While I may balk at the hefty price, I have to say that I am at least tempted and can certainly understand why some people will rush out to buy one of these "phones" (they really aren't a phone anymore, that is just one of many functions). I'll probably wait for a few months but, I think that my next phone will probably be an iPhone.