The Miracle Control Software

If Apple has successfully demonstrated that its model of total control hardware to software was very viable, other companies were able to do the same: HP webOS, Symbian and Nokia Meego, and RIM QNX. The three companies have a large and enviable had all the means to fight inch by inch with Apple, the makers of tablets and smartphones based on Android and Windows Phone has essentially given up their sovereignty to Google and Microsoft enact only way forward.

Despite the stature of these three giants, yet they each accumulated errors incomprehensible. Poorly finished products, strategy nebula, risky investments, they burned all their cartridges in a fiasco that is beyond comprehension.

Nokia, like a rabbit caught in headlights

If Nokia continues to enjoy today the world leader handset manufacturers thanks to its dominance in the market for feature phones, it has nonetheless doubled by the band in the area of ​​smartphones, which relate more .

Morality, from Nokia in the profits reported by the industry of mobile telephony has melted like snow in the sun, from 1220 to 122 million euros a year, and Apple, although not benefiting today ' Today only 4.3% market share, has won first place at lightning speed.

Worse, Nokia has not managed to adapt to this new competition: although it had at its disposal two operating systems for the smartphone market, it proved unable to respond technically to the new. Tired and forced into a change in strategy after the sacking of its CEO, Nokia finally gave up its independence and into the arms of Microsoft, leaving the club of manufacturers with their own OS, a peak for the first manufacturer in the world. The first Nokia phones to use Windows Phone 7 will be available November 16, remains to be seen if they will allow the Finnish manufacturer to get back on track.

On the other hand, although it produces tablets before the iPad, Nokia has so far made no announcement about this area that would allow yet to diversify.

Research In Motion, as the name does not indicate

Upon arrival of the iPhone, Research In Motion enjoyed an enviable position: the ability of BlackBerry messaging devices put these high on the smartphone market, particularly in the corporate world. With this model, which made its success, RIM clung to this achievement with a stubbornness that is breathtaking.

While the Canadian manufacturer is proud to design its products from start to finish, his inaction was fatal to him: knowing that it was the spearhead of smartphones before the arrival of the iPhone and Android, c ' is she who has been hard hit this new competition.

RIM has tried to react with the BlackBerry Storm, taking over the touch interface, and with its tablet PlayBook, but both of them have been burned by critics for their lack of features. Six months after marketing the PlayBook is still unable to use email without using a BlackBerry phone, and update the system, remote start in 2012, it still can happen, a peak for a company that made its reputation on its mail.

The results of RIM are heavily felt it: it continues to lose market share, sales of PlayBook are anemic, and the net profit drop of 47%. The implications of these results were not long in coming, the scholarship sanctioned RIM whose action unscrewed. The last date disaster has struck: its market capitalization is now less than the value of its assets. Investors seem to have lost all hope of forgiveness for the quick Canadian manufacturer, located in especially difficult without its board seems determined to give strong sign, retaining its two CEOs in office despite a Such Berezina.

HP, the hesitation waltz

What about the incredible reversals jacket repetition of the world's number one PC for a few months? After buying Palm for $ 1.2 billion end of April 2010 under the leadership of its CEO Mark Hurd, HP has great ambitions for webOS, which will not only be integrated with its printers, a tablet that promises to give the wire life difficult for the iPad, and even on his own PC. This policy is accompanied by a bold double affront to Microsoft's partner always, since not only weakens HP Windows Mobile that previously operated on its phones, but worse yet it threatens to compete directly with the firm Redmond on his turf. Such a snub augured the best for the future, which was all the more disappointing.

After Mark Hurd dismissed in August 2010 for a dark matter of conflicts of interest, will launch the HP TouchPad in July 2011. Too heavy, too thick, too slow, the HP tablet is laminated by critics and knows a dismal failure at launch. A month later, HP announced the end of commercialization of devices based on webOS, and the separation of its PC division to focus on software and service in the manner of IBM. It sold off its TouchPad unsold for $ 99, and is forced to make one last batch of tablets to meet its orders from its suppliers in an expensive operation.

HP changes again in September as CEO Meg Whitman eventually reverse the decision to separate from the production of PC in October, after weeks of uncertainty. The fate of webOS meanwhile remains in limbo as complete. Rumors suggested that the division webOS could simply be closed, that HP has denied gently without giving any roadmap for its OS.

Triumvirate of failure

HP, RIM and Nokia have everything to succeed: a prominent status, skills undeniable, and their own operating system, a key weapon that only Apple can claim outside of them. Sony's HTC, all other manufacturers have had to rely on a third party solution they do not control the road, and can at best customize without this advantage they offer to each compared to the other. If the specific market of mobile telephony has enabled Android to score points, the tablets do not allow them to turn up to the test: the iPad seems unbeatable. It was hoped that these three companies, with their indisputable advantages, have a good chance to play their role in this market, it did not happen.

So IOS, Windows Phone and the next version of Android each have a model of its own, and if webOS was the first competitor to Apple's OS to show the way, none of these three company has found its due to be in the mobile market by offering products committed and consistent. It is not enough to have an operating system, still need to know what to do. Manufacturers have struggled to understand the break represented by the iPhone and the iPad, it is crippled by the logic of purely material where the competition is strictly at performance figures, unlike Apple, which offers a product that does not stop at these low material contingencies. In fact, Android tablets and smartphones, they are all dependent on Google, are desperate for this purpose since it is the only one to reach, but failed to overcome the logic of carpet dealer to look into the essence even of their products. HP, Nokia and RIM had the means to overcome the head and shoulders that hype sadly prosaic, but have never taken advantage. RIM itself, when she was a pioneer of the smartphone, has not seen the wind change.

One can only wonder face such a mess due to hazardous policies and a lack of voluntarism evident, especially for companies of this size.