J.R.McHale

The mobile market, everyone agrees, is the technology industry’s future. What’s not so clear is which company is best positioned to thrive in that future. For smartphones in particular, the traditional metrics are confusing … So who’s winning? When pondering this, I find myself thinking about dependencies. What is each company doing for itself, and in what ways does each company rely on others? I think this balance, much more than profits or market share, is what will determine long-term success.

Five years ago, the iPhone revolutionized the mobile business and kicked off a seismic shift in the technology industry that continues today. But the massive success of Apple’s phone has overshadowed the grim reality of an American wireless marketplace that has become increasingly hostile to innovation — a market tightly controlled by carriers who capriciously pick winners and losers while raising prices and insisting that their use of valuable public spectrum remain free of any oversight. While the iPhone is a raging success, the wireless market is headed towards total failure.

Updated November 25, 2011:

The AT&T/Verizon Wireless Duopoly

Law professor Susan Crawford on the mobile carrier duopoly that will remain even if the AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition is blocked.

More on the Proposed Merger:
Law professor Mark Lemley on the importance of fringe competition: “If AT&T Marries T-Mobile, All of Us Will Lose.”

Status update: AT&T and T-Mobile merger: Not dead yet (CNN: November 25, 2011)

What if, globally speaking, the iPad is not the next big thing? What if the next big thing is small, cheap and not American? … . even as hundreds of thousands here unwrap their iPads, another future entirely may be unfolding overseas on the cellphone.