iPhone: Who Stands To Gain and Lose?

Apple's iPhone, rolled out at Macworld by Steve Jobs, is going to have a lasting impact on the tech industry beyond today's big splash. Here's a look at the winners and losers:

Winners:

Cingular: By becoming the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, AT&T's (T) wireless unit is going to hit rivals such as Verizon (VZ) Wireless and Sprint hard. Look for the latter to be most impacted since it's the weakest. Cingular also will get a little branding love by sharing the stage with Apple.

Apple: The iPhone is likely to give the company another iPod like revenue stream to ride for years to come. By dropping the "computer" from its name it positions itself beyond just the Mac and iPod. It also worked out the  trademark issues with Cisco  to boot.  (David Berlind predicted that one).

OS X: As an operating system OS X is great. As a mobile operating system it’s really great. Don't be surprised if OS X makes inroads on Windows Mobile, which will increasingly look scaled down compared to OS X and Vista.

Accessory makers: There's a whole cottage industry around iPod accessories. There's no reason to think that the iPhone won't have similar tag alongs.

Losers:

Motorola (MOT): Company is struggling amid low-margin phone devices. The Q's success is questionable. I'm already looking at my Q like its an Edsel.

LG, Samsung et al: These phone makers have made a big push by bundling in music with phones. Apple is going to use its iPod/iTunes juggernaut to raise big problems for other phone makers. Picture an MP3 player market scenario.

Windows Mobile OS: Microsoft's Windows Mobile is serviceable, but it's less elegant than what Research in Motion or Palm can offer. Nevertheless, Windows Mobile has made a lot of inroads, but now it'll have a version of OS X to battle.

Sprint (S): The company is already struggling and now it faces Verizon Wireless and Cingular, which will have Apple's marketing heft riding shotgun. Don't be surprised if a "for sale" sign goes up on Sprint soon.

iPod: Huh? Don't be surprised if at least some iPod sales get cannibalized by the iPhone. After all, the iPhone is basically a bundle of phone meets iPod.

Research in Motion (RIMM): A week ago, RIM's Pearl, also sold by Cingular, was going to be the must have phone of 2007. That title didn't last long and now it has to compete for shelf space at Cingular. 

Palm (PALM): Company can't hit its numbers or its product timelines. Now Palm is stalled out on the tracks looking at RIM in one direction and Apple in the other. Time to go private?

The UMPC: This product category was sketchy from the beginning. Now? Looks like the iPhone may be a rival. It runs a PC operating system, manages contacts and plays music and video. Sounds like a small PC to me.

See also: iPhone Component Suppliers - Cypress and Marvell?

Comments

[mahesh reddy]

I concur...its a smart move by APPLE...But a least suprising thing...becuz..The next obvious product from the apple, sepculated to be a combo of phone,pda and ipod.

i am not sure if this thing will take off ,as the cost of iphone which is listed to retail @$499..seems little pricey ..especially for the cosumers of ipod like devices, who are mostly students..but, there could be a relief if cingular starts subsidising iphone by apple..

SECONDLY,For all these electronic devices, battery is biggest bottleneck...now, that its does so many things, i don't know how it will effect performance and may play huge role to make it a huge success, atleast in the begining...offcourse, Battery technology is getting advanced by the day.

Cingular, seems like is a major winner in all this...if not anything, atleast in a advertising angle, with apple iphone buzz,people want to checkout and will always stop by at the cingular store before getting a new cellphone/plan.

Mahesh Reddy

[DavidJackson]

Another winner: UBS put out a note saying that Broadcom (BRCM) is providing the circuit controller for the iPhone's touch pad.

[Matt D]

Well, it seems that one thing that Apple has lost is the moral ownership of the iPhone name (with the caveat of based on what we know so far)
For full text, please go to maths.blogthing.com/20.../ as the following is just an extract...

Even though it is mere speculation for all of us to debate the legal aspects of who is right or wrong ultimately in this case, it is important for us to separate the legal aspects from the moral areas, with Apple trying to dominate the latter. It is amazing to read the huge number of pro-Apple comments (and on the Cisco’s blog too!) accusing Cisco of a multitude of transgressions when in fact, it is public knowledge that "Apple approached Cisco many times over the past five years to acquire rights to use the iPhone trademark, acknowledging Cisco's rights to the trademark" – this is a clear example of Steve Jobs' famous Pied Piper reality distortion field at work where even his evangelists are instead trying to claim the moral high ground....

For a company that is a very aggressive enforcer of their trademark rights and even claims 200+ patents for its iPhone, it is damning that in addition to the iPhone name dispute, Apple's very own company naming exercise itself was a result of arrogantly taking a forbidden bite out of another company's name. As such, though Apple can count on winning in the court of public opinion and while we await a resolution either in the courts or on the negotiation table, Apple seems to have lost moral ownership of the iPhone name.

[joseph1102_clark]

I have only 3 words to say.
Amazing, Gorgeous and ...

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