iPhone software roadmap: You’ve got (Exchange) mail?

I’ve been reading the famed statement that Apple is after world domination in blog comments such as this for ages but I have always looked at it as a joke, a hilarious statement from people who are unconditionally in love with Apple but a bit out of touch with reality.

Well, guess what, lately we’ve all had a few more dots to link together and it really hit me hard: Apple is indeed after world domination, it’s no funny crackpot joke!

And believe you me, they are going to do it – simply because they’ve got something nobody else does: hardware and software! Other companies have software OR hardware. No time to go deeper on that but it’s easy to see how that plays.

Apple has taken advantage of that edge and turned it into an Eco-system – the Apple Eco-system.

They will not spend their 18B$ buying Sony out [or merging with it] because they don’t need to.

This is really the reason why we have come to see so many seemingly desperate attacks on AAPL, biased media taking every opportunity to take a jab at Apple. I believe that indeed AAPL is being thoroughly attacked not just by this so-called media but on other fronts too. They are scared sh**less of what’s right now unfolding before their own eyes.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise what’s Apple underlying far reaching plan. World domination, of course, is a jokey way to put it. But I won’t be surprised when AAPL is at $600 in a year’s time, when it is quite evident what’s going on.

AAPL is the next GOOG, enough said. The only thing standing against it is a stock market crash, a dollar currency crash, the US+Israel starting a war against Iran that somehow might affect the US economy negatively. Otherwise, unless Apple stumbles over their own shoelaces, it’s quite a straightforward thing.

Hi Philip,

I actually lost my iPhone about a month ago- a devastating event to be sure, but made even more so when I remembered all of the sensitive contact information that is stored on my device (I’ve worked in politics and high tech, so my address book is full of cell phone numbers and email addresses belonging to many very recognizable individuals). I called AT&T to see if they could remotely delete the address book, and what they told me is that all of this info is stored on the SIM card, so when they disable the phone service, the SIM card is locked along with the data on it. This isn’t quite a “remote kill,” but still pretty good nonetheless.

John

The point about the stock being down 40% YTD wasn’t “analysis”, it was a fact.

Here’s the analysis: A company that makes niche products that appeal to maybe 10% of a given market (iPods excluded of course) at a premium price point, will never dominate that market. The fanboys constantly predicting world domination in PCs or phones are the ones that don’t get it. AAPL can’t gain huge market share in those spaces because of the premium prices needed to maintain its margins. Increasing volumes would lower margins – it may also have the unintended effect of pushing the core hipster doofus demographic away. The Motorola RAZR was cool when it came out, but less cool when every housewife in America had one. Same thing with AAPL – if everyone had a Mac or an iPhone, AAPL would become Dell: a provider of commodity products with no “cool factor,” which, lets face it, is why most of you are with AAPL to begin with.

It’s amazing how many of you lack an understanding of the wireless business. The 8GB iPhone is a $400 device with no subsidy, plus the additional $1400+ commitment for a 2-year contract with data plan. That’s beyond the means of a large % of people. The revenue sharing requirements also limit the number of potential wireless partners. AT&T was obviously willing to take on the iPhone as a loss leader for the cachet, apparently Verizon wasn’t, and T-Mobile’s network is a joke compared to AT&T. So currently, the iPhone is limited to one GSM network in the U.S. representing maybe 40% of total wireless subscribers. Unless Jobs cuts prices dramatically, I don’t see any realistic way that they get to the 10 million target while maintaining margins. And what do you think will happen to the stock if the huge iPhone growth engine fails to materialize? A 40% decline will be a fond memory.

There’s nothing wrong with being a provider of niche products with a dedicated customer base. It’s the smug assertions of manifest destiny and the air of entitled superiority of the Mac-olytes that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. The same claims of AAPL domination have been made since the 80’s. Don’t underestimate the size of the population that detests AAPL and all of you latte-swilling slackers. :)

“aapl is still doomed to be the provider of mostly low percentage market share products. yea i said it…now get over it!”

I’d rather own a company’s stock where mkt share upside is huge and it’s growing rapidly, compared to another company’s stock that is maxed-out on mkt share, with minimal upside and marginal to no growth. Dell and HP are not growing share like Apple, not even close, and this has been the case for quite some time now. The iPhone, in less than a year, and in very limited markets, has seen awesome mkt share gains in the smartphone arena. Leopard, likewise, tons of upside, and is growing share incredibly due to its presence of various Apple platforms.

It’s about mkt share growth and upside… and AAPL has tons of it. And, when they are dominant in a segment, as with the iPod, they are innovative enough to evolve it, making it even more desirable (the iPod Touch is not even seen as an mp3 player per se). Can’t say MSFT did this with windows, to the contrary actually (see Vista).

For two years, over 8 or so quarters, AAPL has been growing earnings consistently, averaging 60+% YOY growth. AAPL has a current PE of less than half of this proven growth trend! When one does the math on the deferred iPhone income and sees what’s going to happen to EPS in coming quarters, the future is brighter than anything already experienced.

Apple is gradually cracking the corporate world; and today’s news helps in this regard. Companies, even big ones like Sun, moving to Macs is the beginning of bigger things to come…

Your job is covering everything Apple and have written about fifty articles explaining in great detail everything wrong with the iPhone yet you don’t even own an iPhone? You borrowed somebody’s once? They must have a big budget down there at Fortune/Time Warner/CNN/AOL huh?

Come on Fortune, if your going to pay a guy to write nasty things about Apple and the iPhone the least you could do is buy him one so he can sort of know what he’s talking about first hand.

Funny- I remember the same dialogue occurring when the blackberry came along…..

“You love to write AAPL off based on “analysis” that the stock is down 40%. I suppose that the fact that nearly EVERY tech stock is down is simply coincidence, right?” UMMM… I should point out that RIMM is down maybe 2% YTD, while AAPL is down closer to 40%.

Considering RIMM is the “one to beat”, I’d say AAPL is getting stomped. BADLY.

maddawg, the basement dwelling, Macsux T-shirt wearing, PC gamer/LUSER says: “aapl is still doomed to be the provider of mostly low percentage market share products. yea i said it…now get over it!”

You know you want an iPhone, gamer.

OK, on the “just don’t get it front”…

Any of you who are inclined to denigrate the iPhone (or other products, whether by Apple or not) clearly don’t get it when it comes to ease of use in interfaces.

One place that Apple has shone for years is in simplifying interfaces to make it more accessible and easier to use for people who are not inclined to want to tweak every last little corner of the device. The vast majority of people fall into this category.

I and millions of other people are perfectly happy to get in our cars and turn the key and drive down the road with nary a thought about carburator mixtures and 50,000 other possible-to-be-tuned widgets under the hood of the car. Similarly, we are happy to use simplified devices in the computer and technology realm as well. (Personally, I can handle techie toys and configuration ad nauseum – I just have no interest in doing so.)

You may sneer at them all you like as ‘toys’. But in the mass market ‘toys’ of this nature win…

I’ll have what he’s (Tommo’s) having.

Actually, there are Fortune 500 companies which
already host secure email and company webpages
on iPhones aplenty. I know one corporate
multi-campus environment that has literally
*thousands* of iPhones in operation, merrily
replacing Blackberries en masse. All purchased
on the AT&T corporate account program, all
doing company business with Cisco VPN routing
just fine. Sounds like the author needs a
new IT department.

i agree with you dan and elmerD.

i’ve been in IT for over 21 years and NEVER did a company purchase technical hardware on such a grand scale because of the shiny packaging when one of many much needed features was finally added.

it is ALL about functionality and as long as aapl locks that down and prevents corporate accounts and demands 2 year contracts, corporate america will never integrate it into their environments en masse.

again, another nice little toy feature but not a world savior by any means.

as stated previously, 99.99% of the people that want an iphone have one and no real big, bottom line company will purchase ipods en masse either….

aapl is still doomed to be the provider of mostly low percentage market share products. yea i said it…now get over it!

as for the stock jumping when the launch occurs…..don’t bet on it…! wait until 100 or lower to buy at the least…it is coming like it or not!

I hate to point out that the iPhone really doesn’t need a hundred thousand ’sales manager’ types who aren’t allowed to be away from their ‘office’ emails aka bosses telling them to sell more stuff and cut costs.

I think Microsoft can take care of these poor individuals. Just as the Playstation doesn’t need exchange access, nor does the Xbox or an iPod.
The enterprise can come along for the ride if and when they want, but Apple can sell a lot of iPhones to those in different demographics and businesses. If your main thing, is to integrate with your exchange server, then stick with the the Star Trek look and hang that blackberry on your belt. Really a good look for anyone. Then, in your fanny-sack, you can carry a how-to-manual to help you keep the thing running and working.
OK, so I am being kind of a smarta** here, but really the market is diverse, and if you are going to innovate and create new items, new technologies ETC, you wouldn’t cater to the ‘bald-guys on the go market’. They are just fine being serviced by the cartel. If you are a company with innovation in your DNA, you don’t try and service that demo. If they show up good, but you don’t have to sell to them. Thus when the iPhone was rolled out, AT&T offered not a single business plan for buying. Not the target.
I’m not sure whether all those middle managers in biz development and executive vice presidents of regional sales need an iphone. They should stick with a Dell and whatever Microsoft shoves down their throats next. Or not.
http://cartoonshmartoon.blogspot.com/

Oooh Dan’s upset. I guess he didn’t get an iPhone.

While the advice to ‘Dan from Boston’ to chill out might be well deserved, it’s the wrong advice in the wrong place: if everyone who posted comments in these blogs were chilled – what a boring read it would be indeed…

Getting back on topic: I think there’s one more thing that’s starting to become more important to Enterprises: ease of use and speed of user adoption.
I never did get what an improvement iPhone was on other smart-phones out there from a usability perspective until I got my company’s choice of phone: Treo 700wx with Windows Mobile 5 (what a piece of s@#$@#$*&@#$&%*!!!) So while there’s still a functionality gap that needs to be closed, I predict that when that happens – other Enterprise-suppliers will have a run for their money (or simply start to copy how iPhone works – oh yeah, that’s already happening…)

“The market gets it – that’s why the stock is down about 40% this year.”

Interesting comment, Dan. If only it were that easy. You love to write AAPL off based on “analysis” that the stock is down 40%. I suppose that the fact that nearly EVERY tech stock is down is simply coincidence, right?

Quite often it is the corporate heads that want the devices. They also happen to be in control of the budgets. They ask IT whether it will work the the corporate systems. When IT says “you can’t sync your calendar yet”, or “we need a 3rd party VPN client fro the iPhone that works with our routers first”, that is when the VPs, Directors and others go with a Windows mobile device. As soon as those components are available, those execs will be purchasing iPhones, because the answer from their IT department will be “yes, it works with our corporate systems”. I don’t have an iPhone yet because I need a VPN client to work with our Cisco VPN routers. That is the ONLY reason I don’t have one yet, so I am very excited and have been waiting for this and also expecting it.

“What the fanboys fail to get is that corporate America doesn’t want its employees running around with multimedia entertainment devices that just happen to be able to access corporate email as an afterthought.”

Regardless of whether corporate America wants it or not, many employees want it. And when enough want it, the pressure builds to where it happens regardless of whether IT Nazis (our affectionate term for our IT staff at one company where I worked : ) want it now or not…

I am certain that several people in my company would love to use an iPhone, but the greatest limitation to that is that the plans for iPhones have to be owned by individuals and cannot be part of corporate accounts. So while Apple may support exchange servers, the bill for your phone plan will fall on you and cannot be part of your company’s corporate phone account.

Dan,

Sir, you need to get over the Apple anger and re-read Tommo’s comment (Tommo_UK, London, UK : February 27, 2008 2:26 pm)..

I quote,

“This is huge. This is about 20-30M iPhones/iPod touch owners for application developers to sell applications to. Massive – simply MASSIVE addressable market. One of the biggest things to ever happen at Apple, and …”

Tommo, very clearly, included the iPod TOUCH (including its future descendants) along with the iPhone in his numbers.

Based on the fact you obviously cannot read, I’ll dismiss your inane comment (and opinion) as poorly researched rubbish.

I predict they are announcing a partnership with IBM and a Lotus Notes client.

Dan from Boston. Chill out bro it’s just a phone… Geez!

“The market fails to understand..” blah, blah, blah. The recurring refrain from the fanboys is that no one truly understands AAPL. What the fanboys fail to get is that corporate America doesn’t want its employees running around with multimedia entertainment devices that just happen to be able to access corporate email as an afterthought. Many companies disable the multimedia functions from these devices…OR JUST DON’T BUY THEM. It’s always about the next feature, function, or upgrade with the fanboys. World domination is always just around the corner, until the upgrade comes out and the cycle starts anew.

“Nobody gets it” – yeah right. Only you and the other cult members get it. The market gets it – that’s why the stock is down about 40% this year.

20-30M iPhones? That’s a good one – they likely can’t even BUILD that many, let alone sell that many, unsubsidized, with 2 year voice and data packages attached. Do you even know how corporations buy wireless service? Will Jobs sacrifice his precious $18 per month per user to sell phones to corporate America? Everyone who wants an iPhone has one. There is a small minority holding out for 3G data or Exchange access. There is no way that the majority of corporations allows ths thing in the door as a business device, because it’s not a business device, it’s a toy.

“A smartphone (or a smart iPod) that doesn’t deliver my office e-mail just doesn’t cut it.”

You can always set up an IMAP connection to your Exchange email. We run Exchange and, other than the lack of wireless sync of calendar and contacts (still needs to be plugged in), the IMAP version of email is fine. You tend to get a bit more spam because messages are marked as ‘read’ before your Outlook junk mail can filter them, but I wouldn’t go back to a Blackberry.

ex ped: Like many IT departments, mine supports BlackBerries. I can’t read fortunemail outside the office without a SecureID.

I’m reposting this from my blog over at The Apple Finance Board at TMO (and which I’ve also posted elsewhere:

Here’s a link to the discussion: iPhone SDK LAUNCH EVENT – a Historic Moment for Apple:
http://www.macobserver.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=62790

The market still fails to grasp the significance of this event, but they WILL understand it after the launch, and after the demos and announcements. It will be all over the media.

I firmly believe this is going to have a material impact on the stock in a big way, as projections for iPhone and touch sales will be ramped up now that the Street begins to understand how large the addressable market for the devices really are, not to mention sees for itself the massive interest from large major software development houses in the platform.

It will also see the potential for revenues from software sales through iTunes, which I am sure will be the sole conduit for purchasing and installing applications.

The launch may have been delayed to allow one or two developers to finish their demo products of for the launch.. maybe Lotus Notes, or Exchange, or whatever… needed a bit more work before they could be shown and that’s why the push-back was so last-minute, because they hoped to get the m finished in time but ultimately couldn’t quite do it.

This is huge. This is about 20-30M iPhones/iPod touch owners for application developers to sell applications to. Massive – simply MASSIVE addressable market. One of the biggest things to ever happen at Apple, and basically it has been totally overlooked not just by the Street, but even by most of the Apple usuals.

This is bigger than going from OS9 to OS X of PPC to Intel.

And nobody gets it.

This is NOT just about the iPhone..its about the iPod… iPhone apps will also run on iPod touch models.. that’s why there’s the potential for 20-30M units/year here for developers to address.

Just think of the size of that market! Compare it to say, Nintedo DS/Gameboy and other handheld gaming devices, for example, in terms of appeal to software developers.

This is huge. It about more than the iPhone. Its about the iPhone, the iPod touch, and future full-screen iPod models.

Its about one of the largest opportunities for software developers since the launch of the Wii, the XBox, and the PS3 combined. Or the launch of the Playstation. Whether this particular launch is enterprise-related or not, there will be more launches, and non-enterprise apps, including games, in the long run. THe point is, this is a platform which will be selling in the order of 20-30M units/year and growing over the iPhone/iPod range and that’s a massive massive market for developers!

To paraphrase Steve BALLMER of Microsoft when he did his monkey boy dance : “DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVEOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS.”