Technology

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Apple has shown astounding growth recently with record sales.  They are flying high.  They are, however, locked in a deadly war with Android by Google and the companies that run Android operating system on other companies manufactured phones. 

The offensive legal attack is very costly and it has to be spread across all the players and the countries in which Apple sells.  It is not the usual defensive posture that technology companies take with their products.

This will be combined with defenses in Europe for anti-trust infringement, if they get too aggressive.  Microsoft was plagued for years and billions of dollars by European Courts.

The war consists of players who are competitive within themselves and with Apple.  Before he died Steve Jobs launched a program of suing other phone manufacturers for patent infringements.  He was really attacking the operating systems running on the phones.  It has had little effect.  Apple recently won in three cases, but they did not wobble the competition, because the 'fixes' were easy to do.

The war seems to be Apple against Android with sub-wars of Apple vs. Nokia-Microsoft.  RIM is in there someplace, but they are fading a bit.   The players are:

APPLE vs

• Android Operating System and Android handset makers:

  • HTC

  • Motorola

  • Samsung

• Microsoft and Nokia with System 7

According to Kevin Rivette, a patent attorney and intellectual property expert, Apple should stop the offensive using their patents and make deals that garner partners and  royalties.  Unique ideas don't stay so for long.  User interface patents are very hard to enforce, because they tend to be easy to work around.  They are much like design patents.  That is, not worth much.

Rivette's idea is to have Apple license intellectual property, when their market position is strong and not fight in the world courts where they have not faired well.

The fighting posture is typical of Steve Jobs, who had a hard time acknowledging that others were capable of producing new ideas especially in the look and feel area, which he considered his domain.

One recent fight that Apple did win over Android was tapping on a phone number on the screen to dial it.  This took a matter of minutes to change in Android.  Skype on your PC works that way too.  Click and you dial.

The idea is not earth shaking.  Most of us have clicked on a phone number on a computer to dial a voice over IP number on the net.  It's like clicking on "email us" and launching the users email facility.

Apple who builds their devices in Taiwan and China is faced with companies headquartered there and of course Motorola, which is a US company.  These are the Android users.  That means they use Android as their base operating system and its connection to the cloud.

Another foe is the Microsoft-Nokia combination that uses System 7.  Nokia is popular in Europe and is a Finnish giant company.  These players are in for the long haul.

Apple is counting on the idea of vertical integration.  They manage the building of their hardware and do all the operating system work.  They feel they can charge a little more because the others products are inferior.   This posture is hard to demonstrate, however.  This means that reputation and image are the keys.

The others divide the product into two parts.  Apple does not license their operating system to anyone as yet.  They want to control all aspects.

It's hard to say who will win this war.  The market is compressing with smaller players being forced out.  Android which is Google's operating system places their bet on full integration up to the cloud, but using others to package Android as they see fit.

Google says:  "Want to build a phone?"  Here is Adroid for you as a base.

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Friday, January 27, 2012