So Apple launched a new category yesterday. It's the web pad. Sorry, I mean the Tablet PC, no, no, I mean the MID, err, the eBook. Well something like that anyway.
What consumer want has the iPad converted into a need?
Apple have a track record in bringing products to market in an existing area, and executing better than the incumbents in creating high end, premium, high margin products. They have achieved this with desktops, laptops, portable music players and phones. As Steve Jobs presented the iPad is targetted at the space currently occupied by netbooks, and previously occupied by an array of products, none of which have demonstrated huge success.
What has made netbooks a success in this category? Price. Netbooks offer the promise of laptop functionality at a much lower price point - making them an acceptable additional device. The iPad is close here - the entry level device at $499 is close enough to netbook prices at around $300 to cause people to look - though the gap is still significant enough to dissuade many people.
The same is true for eReaders - Amazon's Kindle is $269 - so it's possible to get a netbook and a kindle for the same price as an iPad. Will consumers view the style and functionality of the iPad as worth the premium?
iPad has some very elegant software in it - it seems to do what it's aiming at very well - what is the likely impact?
Winners
- iPhone software developers. With the marketing hype and hope around iPad skilled iPhone software developers will find themselves even more in demand
- Digital media companies - particularly those with a clear content monetization strategy built off a solid web presence
- HTML5 + CSS developers - Safari in the iPhone OS is significantly ahead of most browsers in what it can do
- RIM - business people with money, and wanting a portable "iPhone like" experience can now keep their Blackberry (with all the advantages of power consumption and corporate email) and buy themselves a personal iPad - less pressure to get iPhones in corporates.
- Amazon - the rush to get eBooks will help Amazon's retailing - you can after all read your Kindle books on the iPad, using the Amazon Kindle iPhone application, I'm willing to bet Amazon can be a better book retailer than Apple - if they no longer have to produce and sell hardware even better - they make money on the content.
Losers
- Adobe. No Flash on the iPhone makes Adobe's core proposition to web developers weaker. Anyone who want's to reliably deliver video to the iPhone + iPod Touch + iPad economy needs an HTML5 solution as well as Flash.
- Intel - Apple's delivery of a superb ARM based browsing solution hurts Intel in the growing low power market. Expect to see more smartbook type notebooks based upon an ARM core with much better battery life than intel based devices
- Microsoft - the emergence of a new "application economy" around iPhone OS hurts Microsoft's long term position in being able to leverage Windows as the platform of trust for application developers
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