Till recently, the contraptions called smartphones were considered little more than objects of gadget lust by business executives. They looked more like overgrown electric shavers; clunky to use, they held little attraction for the average user who wanted to click photographs and play music in addition to the usual bits that we all do on the phone.The leader of the pack, the Blackberry, made by the Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM), helped shape that reputation. Their models were big, bulky and colourless both onscreen and in form. Did someone mention multimedia? Perish that silly thought. Serious phones did not play music or take pictures. They did serious things, like email; but they did that so well that they became a veritable gold standard for executive email on-the-go.Like any other paranoid market leader, RIM figured out, not so long ago, that it would not be a bad idea to test the market with a couple of average-Joe friendly features. Thus models named Curve and Pearl, with cameras and music and an interface that had colour and looked more modern.Still, nobody expected the seismic event that was the iPhone. After all, what would an up-market computer manufacturer do in a crazy competitive field like smartphones where even established players like Motorola or Sony Ericsson were struggling to compete?Recently, news arrived that Apple’s latest refresh of its iPhone — the iPhone 3G — surpassed the Motorola RAZR this quarter as America’s most bought handset. When it was announced on January 2007, it was inconceivable that the iPhone would do that well. No actual keypad? A touchscreen? Too radical. The user interface was slick; it even had fine web browser. But, did we need all that in a smartphone?Apparently we did and in numbers much greater than we could have ever imagined.During Apple’s recent earnings call, Steve Jobs showed off some numbers: In the most recent quarter, Apple sold more iPhones worldwide than the 6.1 million Blackberrys that RIM had managed to sell, making Apple the world’s No.3 mobile phone vendor in terms of revenue. Motorola will not be amused: RAZR notwithstanding, it’s beset by losses and trying to exit the segment. But the company that Apple and Jobs have their eyes trained on is RIM and not Motorola. For years, RIM has had little trouble holding on to its unassailable position as the market leader in the business-oriented smartphone segment.It would not be fair to say that the iPhone alone changed all of that. If you were to look at the evolution of the Blackberry, you would be able to see company move towards a more general-purpose phone, starting with the Curve and the Pearl and culminating in last week’s release of the Storm; and the move predates the iPhone.The potential of a dual-purpose smart phone is hard to beat. It unlocks two incredibly lucrative market segments (business and general) at the same time. While RIM may have intended it, it was Apple who crossed the line first.While the iPhone may not be as good as a Blackberry in tending to corporate needs, bringing out a business smartphone on multimedia steroids alone (the slick Bold, the touchscreen Storm) will not do the trick for RIM; perhaps because, unlike Apple, it has not been able to create a consistent and distinct experience across all its products. Of course, there are two things to fear: Google and Nokia. Nokia may have missed the bus and any form of transportation in dealing with the iPhone and the Blackberry, but it would be foolish to write off the company as past its prime.This is amply evident in the case of the Nokia’s new E71, which matches and even surpasses the iPhone feature-for-feature at a considerably lower price point. It is only a matter of time before Nokia gets its act together and initiatives like Nokia Email (now in beta) are only an indication of that.The joker in the pack is Google. The release of HTC’s G1, powered by Google’s new mobile operating system, Android, has created more than a cursory interest. Google already has a huge number of users on its online services. With handhelds getting even more powerful with time, an Android-powered phone will provide the company the ideal platform to free itself from the shackles of the numerous desktop operating systems.Still, one thing is unmistakable: since the iPhone launched, websites across the world have shown a marked uptake in people browsing them using the device. It is possible that we are seeing the end of the so-called mobile web; the iPhone enables you to experience the web at a level pretty much at par with a standard browser, and that is what all those trying to supplant it are rushing to match.The writer is an industry expert who writes for fatalerror.inexpress@expressindia.com
