There are a couple of companies at this year's MWC who are proclaiming "war" on others. A war of platforms, a war of tablets, etc. etc. Quite frankly, I find such wording totally inappropriate. Here's what Wikipedia says on the term:
"War is a behavior pattern of organized violent conflict, typified by extreme aggression, societal disruption, and high mortality."
I can't get rid of the feeling that those proclaiming "war" are in reality afraid that they are not the winning team, they are not getting enough attention and thus have to use such extreme terms to create attention. In war there might be a winner and a looser, perhaps just losers so I don't think such an analogy makes sense.
In the mobile industry there can be more than one winner and competitive coexistence and competition is something to strive for as a single platform dominance means stagnation.
Fully agree. The problem is the uncertainty that weights on certain infrastructure vendors... For me the only way to escape this "war" is innovation. Try to do things different and not to copy 6 months later...
Posted by: David | February 15, 2011 at 09:11 PM
It's a lot easier to become angry and bully your way around (if you get away with it) than have initiative and do something different. Didn't Mr. Flop (sorry, the bottom bar of the E fell) declared war on Android? Guess who's going to loose? Not Android. It seems that Mr. Flop and Mr. Ballmer are old mates indeed.
Posted by: Dan | February 16, 2011 at 12:04 AM
Absolutely agree Martin. To declare war on a competing product is a cheap marketing stunt. CEOs doing this are clearly not winning the struggle for mindset share, and are simply resorting to upping the rhetoric.
Posted by: William Hern | February 16, 2011 at 09:47 AM