Apple’s view of the tablet is now the accepted model, but one that most commodity competitors still haven’t figured out
Being a pioneer is very difficult, and creating a lasting hit product is an iffy proposition. Apple has had remarkable success in engineering a string of such hits. Everyone else tries to copy it, but does so superficially or imcompletely (the HP TouchPad is a good example) or tries to slap some superficial resembance of whatever Apple did onto the same old products (for example, the flat PCs that got all the buzz and none of the sales in 2010).
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Two possible strategies: Innovate or make better copies
When you combine the commodity strategy of superficial image-making with the decision to make imperfect clones because either you don’t know the difference or think your customer doesn’t know the difference, you get products that scream either “so what?” or, worse, mediocrity.
The Android tablet makers took the low road in their initial Android 2.2-based offerings, so much so that Google has to restrict who could use the tablet-oriented Android 3.0 in an attempt to force quality. That did result in the respectable Xoom and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets, though both had execution stumbles that don’t help make the case for buyers not already committed to the Android platform.
HP and RIM likewise delivered first-version products that stumbled through incomplete execution, undermining their appeal. Look at HP’s new TouchPad or RIM’s recent BlackBerry PlayBook. They offer less functionality in hardware and software than the iPad for all classes of users. Neither has the same level of consumer capabilities or business capabilities as the iPad 2 — and HP’s TouchPad has less than the iPad 2 in terms of enterprise security and management, despite HP’s claim it is targeting the enterprise. Yet they cost the same as an iPad 2. And people are surprised that they’ve been panned by reviewers? Or that customers actually notice they’re being sold an inferior product?
Executives at HP and RIM have made unconvincing statements about not intending to compete with Apple, but of course they are — or should be. (Google and the Android tablet makers clearly have Apple in mind as the competition.) Apple now has the lion’s share of the consumer tablet market, the lion’s share of the business tablet market, and a strong presence in health care and government. Google seeks the consumer market, and Android 3.0 finally starts to address business management and security needs. In the fact of that dual competition, what unaddressed market is left for RIM and HP to aim for? Nothing.
Some suggest that these inferior products will appeal to the silent majority that hasn’t yet “voted” yet by buying a tablet. Seriously? People will not buy a less capable product for the same price as a well-known superior one. Any company that expects that they will is mistreating its customers, and it deserves to fail. Likewise, any company that can’t honestly judge the difference between its products and the market leader’s deserves to go under.
Some apologists cite the “potential” in such destined-for-failure products. Sorry, but asking people to pay for potential is to overcharge them for what you actually delivered, especially when you promised the whole enchilada before you started selling it. For customers, it’s at best a swallowed disappointment that will certainly not build loyalty. The U.S. car industry learned these lessons the hard way and has finally changed, with good results. Dell made the same mistakes, leading to a major fall from grace from which it may not recover.
Unfortunately, the “trust us, we’ll get better” approach seems to be HP’s strategy, based on WebOS chief John Rubinstein’s defense of the TouchPad’s universal poor reviews (InfoWorld, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Associated Press, PC Magazine, and so on). He compared WebOS 3.0 accurately to early versions of Mac OS X: flawed but promising. The difference is that even in the early 2000s Apple had a loyal fan base that kept buying, carrying Apple through as it focused on iPods and iTunes and kept improved Mac OS X to the point that, five years ago (with Tiger and then Leopard), it could attract new customers in its own right. Microsoft’s Vista debacle also happened at a perfect time to get regular people to take a second look, and then came the iPhone.
HP has no such reservoir of passion to tap if its strategy is to take several years to get WebOS to live up to its very real potential; the pool of WebOS users from the Palm Pre smartphone is too tiny, and no one is passionate enough about HP PCs and printers, as solid as they are, to cut WebOS much slack. Look how the Palm faithful quickly abandoned the first WebOS just two years ago when it came in with more potential than execution. After all, there was a known winner (the iPhone and Android in the smartphone case, the iPad in the tablet case) to buy instead.
