How the Android-iPhone-RIM battle will play-out in 4 points

Android, RIM, and the iPhone are locked in a battle royale. Fifty bucks says, in one year, Android will have the most market share but iPhone and RIM devices will capture/retain the most valuable parts of the market.

Here’s why.

  • The iPhone is just one phone, so it can’t appeal to everybody. People come in all shapes/sizes and with heterogeneous desires. Android runs on numerous devices with different characteristics: size, color, whatever. Same, but less so for RIM.

  • The iPhone is a higher quality device than any one possible Android phone. Apple devotes untold resources to the iPhone, whereas HTC (or whomever) develops a ton of devices over which their attention is spread.

  • The same thing happened in the personal computer market. Apple’s joined hardware-OS combos are dwarfed in market share by Windows boxes made by diverse vendors. But, Apple products command a price premium.

  • RIM is screwed in the long term by Android. But, they have a strangle hold on the enterprise market now and those folks don’t change quickly at all.

Because of these factors, I believe that Android will get a substantial lead in market share, but the iPhone and RIM will retain the parts of the market that are most lucrative.