The 3-horse smartphone race is on. Apple iPhone, Google Android, and Windows Phone are duking it out for market share and mindshare. They each are amazing advances in their own way, and have plenty of features in common and differentiators as well.
One of the cool features of the latest generation of smartphones that has really resonated with people because of it’s utility and ease of use, is backend cloud integration, which has practically replaced the old clunky desktop pim (personal information management – contacts/calendar/tasks) sync functionality. Apple has the MobileMe platform, Google has all their cloud web services that have blossomed from Gmail, and Microsoft has their Live services.
What is it going to take to pull ahead in the next leg of the race? Something big. As I mentioned this vertical cloud integration to backend web services is something big. They all have it. And each one also allows a certain amount of limited capability for other vendors’ services as well. For instance I don’t have MobileMe, and instead use Nuevasync to sync contacts and calendars with Google’s backend over IMAP and Exchange.
But what none of them have, is great integration no matter what the backend platform. So if you are a Google services customer, but you want to use Windows phone, you are penalized with reduced functionality and convenience. If you are a MobileMe customer who wants to try an Android phone, you’re not going to get the full experience. And you can get your Live mail on the iPhone, but you’re going to have pay a 3rd party or hack to get your contacts or calendar.
Now we can easily guess why these 3 companies would want to tie smartphone users to their web pim offerings. These backend services are very sticky. If you got Hotmail a decade ago, you’re probably still using it, and naturally your contacts and calendar ended up in Live. Gmail customers use Google Contacts and Calendar, and Reader, etc. MobileMe has plenty of loyal diehard fans, even though Apple charges $100/yr for what the other services give away. People change cell companies all the time, as evidenced by the “churn” statistics we always hear about. But if these companies can get us hooked onto their services, we are much more likely to stay with their phone platform, because of the extra integration features.
I think the next leader though, is going to have to be welcoming to customers of other web services, rather than penalizing. In the same way as Google has garnered massive gains lately by supporting multiple carriers and multiple equipment vendors, the big 3 need to equally support multiple backend services well. Or perhaps even offer ala carte – email from Hotmail, contacts from Google, calendar from MobileMe, etc.
(As a footnote I’d like to pre-respond to the guaranteed-to-come accusation that I’ve mistakenly left Palm or Blackberry or Symbian out of the race. Yes it’s just my opinion, and I’ll be glad to change it when I feel it’s warranted.)
