Apple and Google are Going Toe to Toe in Business Combati8

The new iPhoto for iOS does not use Google Maps.  That is a "tell."  For the moment, Apple provides its own map solution, but uses data licensed privately from Google. Nobody thinks Apple wants to be in that sort of situation. 


Also, Apple has been trying to poach Google Maps employees. Google is watching for patterns that could indicate which direction Apple will try to go in creating its own map solutions. 


The latest sign that Google and Apple are going to be head to head competitors across a wide range of hardware and applications businesses is the recent Google announcement that it would be producing a full line of consumer devices. 


Also, Siri, Apple's voice search app, is another way Apple is trying to displace Google's search engine as the way people find things, much as Facebook essentially also is doing. 

Typical Worker Carries 3.5 Devices

The typical worker now carries 3.5 devices, up from 2.7 in 2011. So whether tablets are displacing PCs of all types, or not, the typical mobile worker seems to feel a need to use more devices, than before, according to a new study by iPass.

Perhaps astoundingly, the study suggests 64 percent of enterprise mobile workers now carry a tablet, and could grow to nearly 80 percent within the next six months if respondents follow through on plans to buy tablets.

	2012	2011
Tablets	0.54	0.27
Laptops/Notebooks	1.32	1.01
Smartphones	1.05	0.97
Mobile Phones	0.37	0.32
Netbooks/Ultra	0.12	0.11
Other	0.07	n/a
Total	3.47	2.68

Figure 1. How many of each mobile device do you personally use for work?

The study still shows that the notebook PC remains the most effective device for multitasking for 62 percent of respondents.  Some 51 percent named the smart phone the best multitasking tool, while and tablets were seen as effective only in combination with another device for multitasking.


So much for the notion that one device can do it all. 

New iPad Supports Long Term Evolution

The new Apple iPad does support Long Term Evolution fourth generation networks operated by AT&T and Verizon Wireless. 


And though we have all been calling the device the iPad 3, Apple does not. 



That feature won't be used, in all likelihood, by most buyers of the new device. 

By some estimates about 25 percent of iPads have been sold with the 3G access capability. That doesn't mean the users all activated the 3G mobile broadband service, only that the devices were capable of doing so. 


Still, some believe the higher-resolution and faster connections will convince more users to buy new Long Term Evolution mobile broadband service. The sharper "Retina" display offers resolution some will argue is better than HDTV, for example. 

Big Divestiture of Rural Lines Coming at AT&T?

Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, has a problem Verizon also faces, namely “under-performing assets.” Among those assets are rural operations, especially given the need to upgrade substantially for broadband access services.

“We've all been trying to find a broadband solution that was economically viable to get out to rural America and we're not finding one to be quite candid,” Stephenson said during AT&T’s fourth quarter 2011 quarterly earnings call.

“The best opportunity we have is LTE,” he said. If that sounds familiar, it should.

Verizon Wireless recently launched its HomeFusion service, which will offer fixed broadband access using the Long Term Evolution network initially in Dallas, Nashville, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., ultimately will provide a facilities-based fixed wireless service anywhere Verizon’s fourth generation network operates. service.

So what is the broadband solution for AT&T’s rural customers? “We don't have one right now,” he said. Since fiber to the home exists, that answer essentially means AT&T has concluded the economics won’t work.

“We're going to have to either completely restructure those businesses,” he said. “ The cost structure has to change, not only the wage and benefit cost structure but just the cost structure associated with the technology, legacy TDM infrastructure out there.”

Those “fundamental changes” will be addressed “in short order,” Stephenson said. Many would not be surprised if those changes involved significant divestment of rural operations, as Verizon has done.

So some might characterize the HomeFusion service as a facilities-based way for Verizon to sell fixed broadband outside the areas where it already provides FiOS or other fixed network service. One wonders whether AT&T might also think about that approach.

What it means, perhaps, is that the Verizon Wireless national Long Term Evolution network represents a facilities-based network that can be used to sell fixed broadband connections, to many consumers, “out of region” with respect to Verizon’s fixed line service territory. And that out of region business might represent 80 percent of U.S. homes.

For both AT&T and Verizon, though, it also appears that ownership of smaller and rural exchanges simply does not make sense anymore. Whether another owner, with a different cost structure, could deploy fiber to the home or some other broadband access network, and earn an adequate return, is the issue.

Can Any Competitors Catch the iPad?

Apple's competitors in the tablet market have to be wondering whether Apple will do it again, namely create a brand new consumer device category it "owns." In truth, that has been the concern ever since the iPad was released. 


And there is reason to worry, one might argue.


Apple iPad penetration in the United States will nearly double from 2011 to 2013, from just over 12 percent of internet users to 22 percent. But other suppliers will whittle Apple's market share from 83 percent in 2011 to 68 percent at the end of 2014, eMarketer predicts, those market share figures might not provide much comfort. 

There will be 54.8 million tablet users in the United States by the end of 2012, eMarketer predicts By the end of 2014, that number will nearly double to 89.5 million. 

The adage that "there is no tablet market, only an iPad market" is no longer as true as it was a few years ago. But it still might be fair to say there is an iPad market, and then a tablet market. When one supplier has 70 percent market share, it is analogous to the MP3 player market, which wound up being an iPod market, with some other providers. 


In 2011, for example, Apple continued to hold 78 percent of the music player market. That is what "terrifies" other competitors. Apple has more than once showed an ability to dominate a new consumer electronics category. 


The mobile phone market is more complicated, as Apple does not compete in the feature phone category. In the smart phone category, Apple has about 30 percent share, globally. 


More tellingly, Apple seems to be, far and away, the most profitable smart phone manufacturer. Right now, one has to wonder whether Apple has done it again, creating a new category which it dominates. 

Apple iPad Ownership Doubles in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K.

Apple iPad ownership seems to be growing just as fast in Europe's five leading economies as it has been adopted in the U.S. market.

More than 11.4 million people in those countries now own an iPad (January 2012), comScore says.

That is almost double the number of people who owned an iPad in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom in February 2011. 

Sprint May End Deal With LightSquared in Mid-March

Not that it will come as a shock, but Sprint Nextel Corp. is ready to end a network-sharing agreement with LightSquared, according to Bloomberg. 

Under terms of the deal that would have had Sprint hosting the LightSquared network, LightSquared was required to get Federal Communications Commission approval to use its spectrum.


LightSquared hasn't been able to do so. Some might say LightSquared still has a chance to move ahead. But aside from experts hired by LightSquared, its executives or others with a business relationship with LightSquared, there doesn't seem to be much thinking that will happen. 


In a larger sense, the difficulties illustrate a larger issue, namely that venture capitalists and technologists sometimes vastly underestimate the highly-political aspects of the communications business. 


That accounts for the much-higher profile the technology industry now pays to wooing decision-makers and other influencers in Washington, D.C., for example.