The release of the iPad predictably resulted in many tech journalists making predictions that the tablet would change the world. Soon we would no longer be using stupid old laptops with their efficient but horribly un-hip keyboards. No, we would instead be up to our neck in iPad knock-offs, swimming in a sea touchscreens.
Yet it seems that reality is not matching these predictions. The few tablets that have arrived, such as the Joo Joo, have been under-funded failures from small companies that no one that doesn’t read Engadget has ever heard of. Larger companies, such as ASUS, Acer and HP, have been slow to release their products, and it isn’t entirely clear where these new tablets will land once they arrive. Details are sketchy and seem to change week to week – the latest rumors about HP’s tablet state that it will only be an enterprise product.
And the journalists who predicted a tablet apocalypse cry – why? Where are these companies? Why are they being so slow? Don’t they know what they’re missing out on?
I think they do know what they’re missing out on – not much. See, there is a problem with the excitement over the iPad, and that problem is that it is an Apple product. Apple products are great, and in fact that is the core of the issue. Many see the iPad and claim that it is excellent because it is a great tablet product made by Apple. I disagree. I think that it is, instead, a great Apple product that happens to be a tablet. Other companies are choosing not to aggressively compete with the iPad because they are being smart. They know that even if they release a product that is equally good (which is very unlikely) that it will never sell as many units as the iPad. Not even close.
We can learn from the other markets that Apple dominates. Consider the iPod. Apple’s classic MP3 play is now nine years old, and it has spurred numerous copy-cat products. Some, like the Samsung P3 which I currently use, are competent competitors that offer many similar features for a lower price. And yet the market share dominance achieved by Apple is staggering - as of late 2009 official estimates figured that the iPod has nearly 74% of the MP3 player market. This becomes particularly shocking when contrasted to the Zune, which has only achieved a market share of a tad over 1%. This comparison is the most important because Microsoft is the only company that has actually tried to compete with the iPod on the basis of features and design – most other MP3 players, including my beloved Samsung P3, compete with the iPod largely on price.
Another example is the market for laptops priced over $1000. According to NPD, over 90% of all laptops that cost over a grand are Apple laptops. It isn’t as if other companies don’t have products in this price category. HP has been trying like hell to get traction with the HP Envy, Dell has the XPS and Adamo laptops, and then there is a whole slew of gaming laptops that fall into this category. Yet Apple kicks ass and takes names in this segment.
Apple’s dominance in these areas is not a recent turn of events, and it suggests that there may be room for a competitor. Yet all companies that have went into business against Apple in these categories has received a crushing defeat. Apple is simply too focused, too lean, and too hip. Competitors like Microsoft and HP may eventually make some money in these markets, but if they do it will be because of Apple’s own slips. The Apple approach to business is strange. Rather than throwing shit at the walls and seeing what sticks, they focus on a few core products and make them frightfully strong.
The reason why we aren’t seeing a huge tablet push by other companies is written in history. Companies aren’t (willfully) stupid. The people at HP, ASUS, Acer, Microsoft, Dell and others known that even if they sink millions, even billions into a tablet project and the associated marketing they are still unlikely to sell one product for every ten iPads. Contrary to what some tech journalists have said, the iPad isn’t selling well because it is a revolution. It is selling well because it is an Apple product, and it has the features and attention to detail that the Apple brand implies.
And you know what? Good for HP. Good for ASUS. Make a few tablets. Sell them based on price or some other obscure feature that only the most anal tech-saavy people care about, but don’t fully commit to a losing battle. Apple is a good company precisely because it doesn’t try to do everything at once – to demand that other companies operate in direct opposition of that principle simply because of the iPad’s success seems foolhardy at best.
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