@trickytom2 Rather than simply disagree with the bold, heroically overoptimistic and ill-judged statements you've made here, I'll instead issue a challenge. I bet that even though there may indeed be many tablet devices about [somewhat diluting the market] in 6-12 months time, none will gain a significant enough foothold in the market to seriously challenge Apple in real terms. And by that I mean market share and genuine earnings. I doubt most will even recover their development costs - a model that Microsoft thinks it can afford to sustain, but can the likes of Dell?
There are a number of seriously flawed assumptions made about so-called "potential iPad beaters". One is amply demonstrated by Sam's comment above: "... the biggest buzz around an iPad alternative has been the Dell Streak - but now, it looks like that won?t be a contender after all." Now? Wasn't it obvious from the beginning? Buzz??
Anyway, who created that alleged buzz? Was there even a real buzz at all? Was any sort of positive buzz ever even justified? I contend the answers are: NO, NO and NO.
Dell did, in their traditional, retarded, clumsy manner, attempt to create a buzz by leaking some pictures. But what users want is actual hands-on experience-based comment. Is it too much to ask for an actual release, followed by some hands-on reviews maybe? You can't get any of that from pictures and hinted spec lists. And how many comments did that story actually attract? Not that many. Comments on forums directly reflect the level of interest there is on the net for a particular product, as do Google searches. Check it out. That picture isn't pretty.
The MS/Dell/Android Axis fans on some tech blogs also tried to create a buzz, by getting far far too over-excited about those uninspiring leaked pictures. Save that energy for [insert own prefs for young starlet]'s first topless beach shots guys! But in the absence of a real device [even a prototype] and some actual hands-on experience, they were just more comment on vaporware.
But what was Dell actually offering? [My use of the past tense here is I believe more than justified]. A small, low-res screen, yesterday's Android OS, on a device with a personality disorder [too small to be a real tablet, too big to be a phone], that can't do Flash [the MS/Dell/Android Axis's argument why Apple's iPad sucks, right?], available on AT&T, all in yet another leak - from the company that millions of frustrated and disappointed desk-bound computer users have already long ago grown to distrust, in the only area where they're dominant - the only area where they've ever been successful!
Are you getting the picture? Horrible isn't it? Now tell me again why, if Dell is leading the MS/Dell/Android tablet vanguard: "The heady days of Apple controlling everything are rapidly disappearing".
It's obvious, the MS/Dell/Android Axis are stuck in 1999 in their understanding of marketing and the psychology of buyer/user choice. We all know, if you tease a child once with the promise of a new toy, you get excitement. Repeat the same tease so may times and eventually, even the arrival of that toy cannot save it from being tarnished by the disappointment inevitably caused by the over-use of this dumb, cruel-minded tactic.
In this respect, buyers/users are just like kids. We all respond to our environment in positive and negative ways. Tease us once and we're like: 'Oh, okay'. Tease us twice and it's: 'W.T..F?!'. Try the same trick again and it's 'Hasta la vista, baby'. Yet these massive corporations, with drawers crammed with their next batch of retrenchment packages, just waiting to be mailed, all blindly keep playing the same game!
Now, when the stolen iPhone 4 stories appeared, some people, obviously accustomed to the cynicism of the MS/Dell/Android Axis method, incredibly actually believed Apple were playing the same retarded game. And this is at the heart of the problem for Apple's competitors.
As anyone who's spent the shortest time studying Apple's internal security policy, M.O. and business model would know, Apple would no more leak a product as they would stick Go-Faster Stripes in original Apple logo colours, on a Cold War era East German Trabant, and use it as a promo vehicle. But for as long as the competition refuse to understand this to be true, and fail to work out why, they have no chance of making any headway in any markets dominated by Apple.
Selling tech products, any products [or services] depends upon beginning with an understanding of the end user. So the first rule of marketing [and no, I don't mean sales] is still: Who buys?
Think I'm wrong? Take my bet. $1000 says I'm right.
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