[corin_]

> Android powered 68% of the phones that shipped that quarter. Apple’s iOS platform ran on 17%. Those two numbers add up to 85%, so setting your goal to become the “number three platform” means you’re targeting 15% of the market.

That's... not true. Trying to be #3 doesn't mean you say "OK, we won't get any customers from the first two, so all we have left are that 15%" it just means you don't think you can take enough of their customers to overtake them.

And to people saying it's bad for company moral... it really isn't. Very few companies can be #1 or #2 in their industry, and for everyone to think otherwise is more often than not just delusional.

[RyanMcGreal]

> Very few companies can be #1 or #2 in their industry

Most industries aren't in winner-take-all markets with huge network effects.

[erikj54]

> winner-take-all markets with huge network effects

I'm not sure what that statement means. It is not winner takes all, with your logic there is only room for 1? Mobile is a growing market, if you think there is no room for competition your betting either Apple or Android will be the only platform.

[goldfeld]

He means the network effects (in this case, the App stores) create a situation of huge dominance of one player over the others. Apple was headed to that position, but what happened was a whole new market of low-end smartphones opened up, witch Android ate up. So you can think of it as a winner-takes-all in the high end and another in the low. Of course competition should and will happen (I have hopes on FirefoxOS), but in these markets the new player usually storms in with domino network effects and pulls dominance to his side. Technology is either you're rocketing up or dying a painful death, it's rarely a healthy sustained competition.

[ja27]

Plus, they only need 8% of the market to be #3, not the whole 15%.