It seems you have had time to re-read Adam Smith's 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Your under-grad professors would be impressed !! Remember though that Smith's earlier work 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' is a more seminal work worthy of a re-raed also and would have greater application the scenario you paint.
For the rest of you reading this post and have no friggin idea what this all about, DuckDuckGo 'Adam Smith', grab a good long coffee and settle down for a good read...
…having some other wireless solution which didn’t require towers everywhere.
Okay. You go right ahead and invent it, then. We’ll wait. For 40 years.
Heck, even a WiFi "phone" makes more sense to me.
A phone that can’t be used anywhere, at any time, for any reason makes sense to you? The infrastructure requirement is at least two orders of magnitude greater.
That needs one more than a cell phone.
Given that it’s not a cell phone now, I don’t get your point.
While they are at it do something about content.
Yeah, while they’re at being the only company in the industry doing anything on their own, they may as well be unreasonably forced to do even more because you say so!
Joining forces with the cable companies is hardly the way to change the world.
A phone that can’t be used anywhere, at any time, for any reason makes sense to you? The infrastructure requirement is at least two orders of magnitude greater.
I doubt the OP was referring to a phone that *only* works over WiFi (since that would not be actually a phone but rather a VOIP client). He was more likely referring to something like what the RepublicWireless startup has been doing, which is to let phones make calls over both cellular and WiFi while (ideally) seamlessly transitioning between the two as the user moves about during calls.
What big price discounts does this refer to? Most Android flagships are priced in the same range as the iPhone. For example, the unlocked S5 starts around $650.
Say what? The article didn't specify flagships, only Android phones in general.
And most Android phones sold worldwide are low-end junk. The Galaxy S5 represents a small fraction of the total Android phones sold.
Samsung doesn't break down their mobile revenues by phones, tablets, IP licensing (for LTE and other cellular patents) or cellular equipment sales, but if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say ALL their mobile revenues were ONLY from phones, then the average selling price of a Samsung phone in 2013 was around $230. And that's being VERY GENEROUS. So a few Galaxy S5 sales can't make up for the gazillion sub-$100 phones Samsung also sells.
I can't see Amazon being sucessful selling an Android phone, especially if Google is struggling to compete in the handset business and finally threw in the towel. But hey, Bezos is welcome to throw his smartphone into the ring and give it a go...
Say what? The article didn't specify flagships, only Android phones in general.
And most Android phones sold worldwide are low-end junk. The Galaxy S5 represents a small fraction of the total Android phones sold.
Samsung doesn't break down their mobile revenues by phones, tablets, IP licensing (for LTE and other cellular patents) or cellular equipment sales, but if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say ALL their mobile revenues were ONLY from phones, then the average selling price of a Samsung phone in 2013 was around $230. And that's being VERY GENEROUS. So a few Galaxy S5 sales can't make up for the gazillion sub-$100 phones Samsung also sells.
The word "discount" would suggest a lower selling price than what would be considered "normal". The "low-end junk" you refer to live in a completely different product category than the premium iPhone-class hardware, so it is not meaningful to compare their prices. What, then, is considered a "normal" selling price for all those sub-$100 phones? If all those gimped phones are selling for $100, then $100 is their standard price.
The "low-end junk" you refer to live in a completely different product category than the premium iPhone-class hardware, so it is not meaningful to compare their prices.
Thank you!
I wish people would remember that when the quarterly smartphone reports come out.
People love to combine ALL smartphones sales together and then calculate Apple's particular share. I never understood that.
The automobile market has clearly defined categories. They don't compare sales of luxury cars to economy cars. While all those cars have four wheels and get you from place to place... they attract different customers.
So I don't understand why a $600 phone is on the same chart as a $100 phone.
I'll be upfront and say that most of you guys just don't get it; you don't understand why Amazon would build a phone to begin with, and so you try to frame it in terms that you can understand, which is direct competition with Apple. But Bezos isn't trying to compete with Apple. Bezos isn't trying to steal Apple's lunch (yet), or even grab the pickle off their burger.
Bezos is optimizing Amazon's business, which is in essence the argument leveled in this piece, minus all the Apple worship.
Kindle is an excellent case in point. Although just about everyone here is quick to dismiss Kindle tablets, when you look at the real numbers, it's easy to see why Bezos and company think they are a grand idea. Kindle tablets are estimated to own about 7 - 8% of the market, which is not as insignificant as everyone here would like to imagine. It is higher, for example, than those guys up in Redmond. Still it is a number that is obviously no threat to Apple. But it may interest you to know that this seemingly insignificant 7 - 8 percent number has helped fuel 21% quarterly growth of Amazon's sales of media (video, books, and other content). So that small 7 - 8 percent market share is driving almost 90% growth YOY of Amazon's content business, which is not at all shabby, and which more than justifies Amazon's approach. And that business presently accounts for almost 8 billion dollars in annual revenue. Map that number out with 1 or two years of continued 90% growth and it is not very hard to understand why Amazon is committed to their technology strategy. Promoting their ecosystem is a huge plus for Amazon's business.
So against that, the sane question to ask is why wouldn't Amazon want to build a phone? It is tailor made to drive the company's core business, and that is I might add not a shred different from how Apple uses the halo effect of their hardware to drive other aspects of their business.
FYI, it is estimated that grabbing just 3% of the Android phone market could net Amazon an additional $5 billion in annual revenues. That's not chump change.
People don't understand how Bezos approaches things; he has a horizon of 5 to 10 years when it comes to business strategy, and it is a core value for him that he is willing to be misunderstood for a very long time, which is essentially what most of you are doing; you misunderstand what Bezos is up to and you all too quickly dismiss it.
Amazon has built probably the best cloud services infrastructure in the world, which is quite surprising for a company everyone sees as a retailer. But to clue you in on how good AWS is, it is the backbone for many successful tech companies, including Netflix, Adobe, Expedia, Pinterest, and more. As a matter of fact, AWS just won a major CIA contract, and beat out IBM to do it. Which serves, in many ways, as a testimony.
Amazon has also built an advertising and data harvesting enterprise that significantly exceeds that of competitors such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and which directly challenges Google in many ways.
Amazon competes directly against Netflix for streaming video, and quite well.
Amazon competes against Google and Apple for video and music content sales.
Amazon is a gargantuan retailer competing against almost everyone.
Amazon just built a payment processing service to compete against Paypal and others.
And I could go on.
My point is that there is a much bigger picture here than simply hawking phones, and I think that most of you laughing about the phone completely miss that very big picture; you don't see the many strategic ways in which selling a phone is a strong plus for Amazon's business, even if it never even comes close to challenging Apple in any way.
What big price discounts does this refer to? Most Android flagships are priced in the same range as the iPhone. For example, the unlocked S5 starts around $650.
Ummm, no. Most Androids are sub $300 - $350. That's half the price of an iPhone. The higher priced Androids (>$350 or $400) represent a small portion of the Android party (I'd guess about 20%). Plus, almost all Androids now have special discounts and incentives like zero interest for EMIs, free Google Drive storage for 2 or 3 years, Cash-back etc.
Bezos aping Jobs is just sad, like a mall cop standing next to a state trooper.
This article wasn't up to Dilger's usual standards. Normally I enjoy his posts but this had many annoying statements.
" there's nothing on this device that really addresses customer needs." - for an Amazon customer, instant communications with customer service is most certainly a benefit.
I personally have no interest in it, but Daniel undermines the valid portions of his arguments with nonsense like this.
Bezos aping Jobs is just sad, like a mall cop standing next to a state trooper.
This article wasn't up to Dilger's usual standards. Normally I enjoy his posts but this had many annoying statements.
" there's nothing on this device that really addresses customer needs." - for an Amazon customer, instant communications with customer service is most certainly a benefit.
I personally have no interest in it, but Daniel undermines the valid portions of his arguments with nonsense like this.
As is instant and seamless access to their content purchased through Amazon.
Kindle is an excellent case in point. Although just about everyone here is quick to dismiss Kindle tablets, when you look at the real numbers, it's easy to see why Bezos and company think they are a grand idea. Kindle tablets are estimated to own about 7 - 8% of the market, which is not as insignificant as everyone here would like to imagine. It is higher, for example, than those guys up in Redmond. Still it is a number that is obviously no threat to Apple. But it may interest you to know that this seemingly insignificant 7 - 8 percent number has helped fuel 21% quarterly growth of Amazon's sales of media (video, books, and other content). So that small 7 - 8 percent market share is driving almost 90% growth YOY of Amazon's content business, which is not at all shabby, and which more than justifies Amazon's approach. And that business presently accounts for almost 8 billion dollars in annual revenue. Map that number out with 1 or two years of continued 90% growth and it is not very hard to understand why Amazon is committed to their technology strategy. Promoting their ecosystem is a huge plus for Amazon's business.
I thought Amazon didn't release figures.
People don't understand how Bezos approaches things; he has a horizon of 5 to 10 years when it comes to business strategy, and it is a core value for him that he is willing to be misunderstood for a very long time, which is essentially what most of you are doing; you misunderstand what Bezos is up to and you all too quickly dismiss it.
This 'horizon of 5 to 10 years' in the future is repeatedly getting him nowhere. The reason Kindles have even managed to grab a minute share in the vast sea of devices is because they are so cheap, and purported to drive Amazon sales.
Amazon has also built an advertising and data harvesting enterprise that significantly exceeds that of competitors such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and which directly challenges Google in many ways.
Data harvesting is a good thing because...?
Amazon competes directly against Netflix for streaming video, and quite well.
Amazon competes against Google and Apple for video and music content sales.
Amazon is a gargantuan retailer competing against almost everyone.
Amazon just built a payment processing service to compete against Paypal and others.
Amazon doesn't compete directly with all these services. It's a retailer that competes with all of them at a given time, and doesn't perform half as good. Netflix is tailored to provide just video streaming. Just open netflix.com and see how everything is catalogued.
Open iTunes store or Google Play store, and you'll see a neat organisation of everything, not a slapdash like that of Amazon. Same goes for PayPal. They have a competing service, yes, but I am yet to hear a person say "I fancy paying for this with my Amazon payment service, you know the one they built to compete with PayPal..."
My point is that there is a much bigger picture here than simply hawking phones, and I think that most of you laughing about the phone completely miss that very big picture; you don't see the many strategic ways in which selling a phone is a strong plus for Amazon's business, even if it never even comes close to challenging Apple in any way.
The discussion is about the newly launched phone, please see the title. The reason why Fire Phone misses is because of its price. If it would have been priced sub $300, then yes, people would buy it and subsequently drive Amazon sales.
And as Daniel's post pointed out, Fire Phone doesn't really cater to users' needs, and that'd be fine if it were priced lower. With a price similar to iPhone, and features that do not tend to make your work easier (even the limited selection of apps), ask yourself if you want to buy Fire Phone, or rather buy some other phone.
Comments
Nah. Samsung only copies leading devices.
Apple's reliance on the iPhone for so much of its revenue is not healthy. Cell phones come and go.
You'd think mantras would have evolved at least a little in seven years' time.
It seems you have had time to re-read Adam Smith's 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Your under-grad professors would be impressed !! Remember though that Smith's earlier work 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' is a more seminal work worthy of a re-raed also and would have greater application the scenario you paint.
For the rest of you reading this post and have no friggin idea what this all about, DuckDuckGo 'Adam Smith', grab a good long coffee and settle down for a good read...
Wow.
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Okay. You go right ahead and invent it, then. We’ll wait. For 40 years.
A phone that can’t be used anywhere, at any time, for any reason makes sense to you? The infrastructure requirement is at least two orders of magnitude greater.
Given that it’s not a cell phone now, I don’t get your point.
Yeah, while they’re at being the only company in the industry doing anything on their own, they may as well be unreasonably forced to do even more because you say so!
Nice false message here.
A phone that can’t be used anywhere, at any time, for any reason makes sense to you? The infrastructure requirement is at least two orders of magnitude greater.
I doubt the OP was referring to a phone that *only* works over WiFi (since that would not be actually a phone but rather a VOIP client). He was more likely referring to something like what the RepublicWireless startup has been doing, which is to let phones make calls over both cellular and WiFi while (ideally) seamlessly transitioning between the two as the user moves about during calls.
Ratsh*t.
What big price discounts does this refer to? Most Android flagships are priced in the same range as the iPhone. For example, the unlocked S5 starts around $650.
Say what? The article didn't specify flagships, only Android phones in general.
And most Android phones sold worldwide are low-end junk. The Galaxy S5 represents a small fraction of the total Android phones sold.
Samsung doesn't break down their mobile revenues by phones, tablets, IP licensing (for LTE and other cellular patents) or cellular equipment sales, but if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say ALL their mobile revenues were ONLY from phones, then the average selling price of a Samsung phone in 2013 was around $230. And that's being VERY GENEROUS. So a few Galaxy S5 sales can't make up for the gazillion sub-$100 phones Samsung also sells.
Say what? The article didn't specify flagships, only Android phones in general.
And most Android phones sold worldwide are low-end junk. The Galaxy S5 represents a small fraction of the total Android phones sold.
Samsung doesn't break down their mobile revenues by phones, tablets, IP licensing (for LTE and other cellular patents) or cellular equipment sales, but if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say ALL their mobile revenues were ONLY from phones, then the average selling price of a Samsung phone in 2013 was around $230. And that's being VERY GENEROUS. So a few Galaxy S5 sales can't make up for the gazillion sub-$100 phones Samsung also sells.
The word "discount" would suggest a lower selling price than what would be considered "normal". The "low-end junk" you refer to live in a completely different product category than the premium iPhone-class hardware, so it is not meaningful to compare their prices. What, then, is considered a "normal" selling price for all those sub-$100 phones? If all those gimped phones are selling for $100, then $100 is their standard price.
DED and "Gutter" journalism go hand and hand.
See what I did there?
Thank you!
I wish people would remember that when the quarterly smartphone reports come out.
People love to combine ALL smartphones sales together and then calculate Apple's particular share. I never understood that.
The automobile market has clearly defined categories. They don't compare sales of luxury cars to economy cars. While all those cars have four wheels and get you from place to place... they attract different customers.
So I don't understand why a $600 phone is on the same chart as a $100 phone.
I'll be upfront and say that most of you guys just don't get it; you don't understand why Amazon would build a phone to begin with, and so you try to frame it in terms that you can understand, which is direct competition with Apple. But Bezos isn't trying to compete with Apple. Bezos isn't trying to steal Apple's lunch (yet), or even grab the pickle off their burger.
Bezos is optimizing Amazon's business, which is in essence the argument leveled in this piece, minus all the Apple worship.
Kindle is an excellent case in point. Although just about everyone here is quick to dismiss Kindle tablets, when you look at the real numbers, it's easy to see why Bezos and company think they are a grand idea. Kindle tablets are estimated to own about 7 - 8% of the market, which is not as insignificant as everyone here would like to imagine. It is higher, for example, than those guys up in Redmond. Still it is a number that is obviously no threat to Apple. But it may interest you to know that this seemingly insignificant 7 - 8 percent number has helped fuel 21% quarterly growth of Amazon's sales of media (video, books, and other content). So that small 7 - 8 percent market share is driving almost 90% growth YOY of Amazon's content business, which is not at all shabby, and which more than justifies Amazon's approach. And that business presently accounts for almost 8 billion dollars in annual revenue. Map that number out with 1 or two years of continued 90% growth and it is not very hard to understand why Amazon is committed to their technology strategy. Promoting their ecosystem is a huge plus for Amazon's business.
So against that, the sane question to ask is why wouldn't Amazon want to build a phone? It is tailor made to drive the company's core business, and that is I might add not a shred different from how Apple uses the halo effect of their hardware to drive other aspects of their business.
FYI, it is estimated that grabbing just 3% of the Android phone market could net Amazon an additional $5 billion in annual revenues. That's not chump change.
People don't understand how Bezos approaches things; he has a horizon of 5 to 10 years when it comes to business strategy, and it is a core value for him that he is willing to be misunderstood for a very long time, which is essentially what most of you are doing; you misunderstand what Bezos is up to and you all too quickly dismiss it.
Amazon has built probably the best cloud services infrastructure in the world, which is quite surprising for a company everyone sees as a retailer. But to clue you in on how good AWS is, it is the backbone for many successful tech companies, including Netflix, Adobe, Expedia, Pinterest, and more. As a matter of fact, AWS just won a major CIA contract, and beat out IBM to do it. Which serves, in many ways, as a testimony.
Amazon has also built an advertising and data harvesting enterprise that significantly exceeds that of competitors such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and which directly challenges Google in many ways.
Amazon competes directly against Netflix for streaming video, and quite well.
Amazon competes against Google and Apple for video and music content sales.
Amazon is a gargantuan retailer competing against almost everyone.
Amazon just built a payment processing service to compete against Paypal and others.
And I could go on.
My point is that there is a much bigger picture here than simply hawking phones, and I think that most of you laughing about the phone completely miss that very big picture; you don't see the many strategic ways in which selling a phone is a strong plus for Amazon's business, even if it never even comes close to challenging Apple in any way.
Have a nice evening.
What big price discounts does this refer to? Most Android flagships are priced in the same range as the iPhone. For example, the unlocked S5 starts around $650.
Ummm, no. Most Androids are sub $300 - $350. That's half the price of an iPhone. The higher priced Androids (>$350 or $400) represent a small portion of the Android party (I'd guess about 20%). Plus, almost all Androids now have special discounts and incentives like zero interest for EMIs, free Google Drive storage for 2 or 3 years, Cash-back etc.
This article wasn't up to Dilger's usual standards. Normally I enjoy his posts but this had many annoying statements.
" there's nothing on this device that really addresses customer needs." - for an Amazon customer, instant communications with customer service is most certainly a benefit.
I personally have no interest in it, but Daniel undermines the valid portions of his arguments with nonsense like this.
Bezos aping Jobs is just sad, like a mall cop standing next to a state trooper.
This article wasn't up to Dilger's usual standards. Normally I enjoy his posts but this had many annoying statements.
" there's nothing on this device that really addresses customer needs." - for an Amazon customer, instant communications with customer service is most certainly a benefit.
I personally have no interest in it, but Daniel undermines the valid portions of his arguments with nonsense like this.
As is instant and seamless access to their content purchased through Amazon.
PS: This season has been great!
Kindle is an excellent case in point. Although just about everyone here is quick to dismiss Kindle tablets, when you look at the real numbers, it's easy to see why Bezos and company think they are a grand idea. Kindle tablets are estimated to own about 7 - 8% of the market, which is not as insignificant as everyone here would like to imagine. It is higher, for example, than those guys up in Redmond. Still it is a number that is obviously no threat to Apple. But it may interest you to know that this seemingly insignificant 7 - 8 percent number has helped fuel 21% quarterly growth of Amazon's sales of media (video, books, and other content). So that small 7 - 8 percent market share is driving almost 90% growth YOY of Amazon's content business, which is not at all shabby, and which more than justifies Amazon's approach. And that business presently accounts for almost 8 billion dollars in annual revenue. Map that number out with 1 or two years of continued 90% growth and it is not very hard to understand why Amazon is committed to their technology strategy. Promoting their ecosystem is a huge plus for Amazon's business.
I thought Amazon didn't release figures.
This 'horizon of 5 to 10 years' in the future is repeatedly getting him nowhere. The reason Kindles have even managed to grab a minute share in the vast sea of devices is because they are so cheap, and purported to drive Amazon sales.
Data harvesting is a good thing because...?
Amazon competes against Google and Apple for video and music content sales.
Amazon is a gargantuan retailer competing against almost everyone.
Amazon just built a payment processing service to compete against Paypal and others.
Amazon doesn't compete directly with all these services. It's a retailer that competes with all of them at a given time, and doesn't perform half as good. Netflix is tailored to provide just video streaming. Just open netflix.com and see how everything is catalogued.
Open iTunes store or Google Play store, and you'll see a neat organisation of everything, not a slapdash like that of Amazon. Same goes for PayPal. They have a competing service, yes, but I am yet to hear a person say "I fancy paying for this with my Amazon payment service, you know the one they built to compete with PayPal..."
The discussion is about the newly launched phone, please see the title. The reason why Fire Phone misses is because of its price. If it would have been priced sub $300, then yes, people would buy it and subsequently drive Amazon sales.
And as Daniel's post pointed out, Fire Phone doesn't really cater to users' needs, and that'd be fine if it were priced lower. With a price similar to iPhone, and features that do not tend to make your work easier (even the limited selection of apps), ask yourself if you want to buy Fire Phone, or rather buy some other phone.