Apple's iPod Must Beware Woes of Netscape, Nokia: Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg Columnists, 4 Nov)
...
You have to go via iTunes to put songs on your iPod. You can't download from Microsoft, Sony Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. or any other Internet site. And you can't put your iTunes music library onto anyone else's digital music player.
You can run iTunes on a Windows computer, which is a small victory for common business sense by Apple. Yet it's still a closed system between Apple's software and devices. And Apple's closed system in the personal computer realm was what almost killed the company.
...
Netscape? The browser that changed the world. Most SillyDog701 users know the store well.
...
Windows 95 marked the end of the world as Netscape knew it. It was also almost the end of Apple, whose operating system and software would only run on its own computers, locking you into its hardware. (A two-year flirtation with licensing clones built by a handful of companies including Motorola Inc. was abandoned in 1997.) Microsoft's software, in contrast, ran on just about any computer. Apple's share price halved between April 1990 and December 1995, while Dell Inc.'s stock climbed 30 percent and Compaq Computer Corp.'s stock quadrupled.
While Apple struggled on, relying on the graphic-design industry for sales, Netscape began the slow slide into oblivion. Windows 95 came bundled with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, arguably an inferior way of viewing the Web than Netscape's Navigator. That didn't matter. Explorer's integration with the Microsoft operating system, the subject of a complex 1999 lawsuit initiated by the U.S. government, allowed Microsoft to chip away at Netscape's 80 percent market share.
...
And what about Nokia? The mobile phone company once had the largest market share... well, it's ugly, the commentary said.
...
Yet, even the sexiest gadgets can be displaced by the next generation, and technology and fashion can be a deadly combination. Just ask Finnish phone company Nokia, which had almost 34 percent of the mobile-phone market last year and is now down to about 31 percent, short of its 40 percent target.
Ugly Doesn't Sell
Nokia failed to catch on to the trend of bolting digital cameras to the back of mobile phones. It missed the boat on clamshell, flip-top phones, which typically have bigger screens than Nokia's classic candy-bar designs. Truth be told, its phones look ugly and antique next to the competition.
As a result, Nokia faces a second consecutive quarter of declining profit and revenue. Its shares have shed almost 20 percent in the past year.
...
Read the full article:
Apple's iPod Must Beware Woes of Netscape, Nokia: Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg Columnists, 4 Nov)
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8
