geotopia

Smartphone Update: 2008 Q4 Market Share

If I read the text right, this article purports that a narrow product range is a negative for Apple, but there's no empirical evidence that a broad range of offerings have helped any of the entrenched players keep or build marketshare, and in fact, the opposite is likely true. There's only one iPhone, not only in that only Apple builds the iPhone, but that Apple only has one model (with different memory capacities, though that hardly broadens their product range, just the "options" available for said product).

Microsoft's Zune Tries to Preempt Apple's "Rock" Event

Although I'm starting to get used to it now, it's still feels odd to see MSFT getting bested in so many areas of technology in spite of their monopoly. I'll bet it has taken a while for the Redmond culture to grasp that the Windows/Office monopolies were not invulnerable and some divisions (Zunes, MSN, XBox, MCE) seem to resist to their detriment that they won't succeed without innovating and besting the competition. Perhaps the perfect storm that built the DOS monopoly (remember, the egg before the chicken) can't be duplicated and Bill was more a fluke than a genius!?
Anyway, the author of the article is a bit facetious with respect to the Zune's market, but it's hard to take it too seriously. I'd like to know how many Zune units have been sold in the last two years. Does anyone have that number? Want to share it? Disgruntled employees? Burned marketing partners? Retailers?