It’s been “back and forth” on the subject of smartphone apps since yesterday. The question is “what really matters on the phone: the apps or the OS?”, “Who will lead the market: Apple, Google or Microsoft?
At the end of the day, and it seems rather logical, Robert is user centric and Ray is system centric, as a Microsoft leader.
In my opinion, what matters is the user experience embodied by the global mobile environnement and, at its heart, the apps:
– the global mobile environment is the OS / Platform, the apps, the phone itself and the mobile operator
– the apps drive your personal usage of the phone. The apps have and will drive trafic and will be a key differentiating factor
The developpers, as a key link between the giants and the customers, will choose between the platforms. All the apps will not be ported on all platforms and for many reasons: cost, specialization of the developpers, specifics of the platforms and the “beach factor” ( the fact that at some point, we’d rather go for a walk with the kids than work on another project).
Back to yesterday and what was really said by Ray Ozzie
At a Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, yesterday, Ha, from Venture Beat reported that Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, said that the applications available on the smartphones will not be the key differentiators.
On that basis, Scobble reacted “Ray Ozzie is wrong about smartphone apps”.
According to Kip Kniskern who attended PDC 09, Ray did not exactly said what Ha reported. (in the comments on Robert’s post)
Ray definitely didn’t say (or mean) that “apps don’t matter”. In fact, he called the current generation of phones “app phones”, and if I can paraphrase a bit, what he meant was that the apps ARE what matter. Do apps matter? Yes definitely. Will you have to buy a particular phone to run a particular app? From what Ozzie seemed to think, not for long.
It seems that for Ray, (in the comments on Robert’s post)
apps won’t be a differentiating factor because mobile apps can be easily ported from one platform to another.
Overall, read the comments on Robert’s post