What this graph shows is that Apple (on the bottom of the graph) is growing share but not nearly at the pace which Google is exploding at - in gray. Sandwiched in between are the losers. Microsoft (red), Palm (yellow) and RIM (green). In the future Microsoft and Palm will only appear as lines as their share will become invisible as the ocean of opportunity above the Google gray is from 80 million to 240 million phones which are not yet smartphones but will be converted to some type of smartphone. No one can say that the opportunity was not large enough for the losers to have made bigger plays in the space.

I think the answer is the losers simply don't understand the new paradigm. Things like PCs, printers and the like are yesterdays technologies. The Cloud is not a recepticle for photos, which is Microsoft's lame advertising messaging but rather for everything. Just as in the past the loosers couldn't let go of their own failing thinking and therefore will be swept away. RIM is still interesting in that they still have a ton of market share.

If RIM could get some management in place with just a bit of vision they could compete - there are so many companies which have RIM's architecture deployed and in place. Hopefully they can get some execs who have some vision. Otherwise RIM's share will eventually look like Microsoft's and Palm's. HP has already disappeared from view.

On a separate note I tried some new technology out last week which works pretty well. I cancelled my office line which had been an old copper POTS line in favor of a Motorola cordless phone which connects via bluetooth to my cell phone. As long as I leave the cell phone reasonably close to the master unit for the cordless phone - the signal is clear and I can walk about using the cordless phone just like I could with my old copper line.

Until Cell providers build out their infrastructure to enable all of our activities to go through Cell towers and home repeaters - we will be stuck having to use these stop gap technologies. The Motorola 2 hand set unit was $53 including tax - about two months of the cost of the old phone line. Definitely a cost effective stop gap.