Survey: Microsoft, Motorola hit hardest by iPhone

If I remember correctly, Danger is also an OS maker, not a hardware maker. I believe they OEM the actual handsets. If that is correct, then the move to buy Danger was just to reduce the number of competitors and gain a popular consumer brand (the Sidekick). Both aspects of this seem like likely responses to the introduction of the iPhone.

"Notably, 75 percent of these already owned some form of Apple product, whether an iPod or a Mac. The company may thus have problems trying to push the iPhone onto a mainstream population."

The iPod isn't mainstream? And 12% computer share seems pretty mainstream to me too.

Wouldn't that be ironic? Microsoft would have to take something that they currently make money on and give it away for free in order to compete. Hmmm...seems like Google took a page from Microsoft's playbook. Former Netscape employees rejoice!

Hmm according to the MS executives they are pretty confident we are all going to use Windows Mobile for the rest of our lives. :-)

Danger also has a cut in the phone subscriptions so more than probably we'll see MS yet again try to make a blatant copy of the iPhone. That won't be easy this time, the combination osX, 'open' SDK and iTunes is an almost unbeatable combination.

A poll of iPhone users doesn't really tell you much about other products. At least polls asking smartphone owners what they just bought and why, and what it was replacing, would be more informative. (Prospective buyer polls are just as useless, since just because someone thinks they might buy x or y, doesn't mean they will).

Then again, as is often pointed out here, statistics can be made to say whatever someone wants, and, therefore are generally useless.

I think the iPod has become so ubiquitous, (you cant throw a rock in new york without hitting an iPod owner) that I don't see it as a mainstream-lacking product. Plus, those simple iPhone ads dont hurt either

Testudo, If you want to get demographics and influences on iPhone users, polling them is not useless. If you are a competitor this information is very useful. I am not sure what you do for a living, but I hope it is not research or marketing related.

They should have distinguished "previous Apple product owners" with "previous iPod" and "previous Mac" owners. If 75% of iPhone owners have owned Macs, then I'd agree that the iPhone might be a Mac user's "thing" and have a problem entering the mainstream. I don't think (as others have said) that the iPod is in such a niche that you could come to the same conclusion.

I think Testudo's point is that the poll has a bit of a narrow focus to conclude anything useful. It's making the same mistake as asserting that the sale of ice cream causes drownings because drownings and ice cream sales numbers are highly positively correlated (which they are, pretty much everywhere in the world).

If you don't know the demographics and influences of users who buy competing products, then you can't differentiate which demographics and influences differ, if any. (from a research and marketing standpoint, this information is FAR more important than just knowing who people are and what they like).

As far as the conclusion that "Microsoft and Motorola are hardest hurt by the iPhone". By polling only iPhone users, there's still a skewed result. For example, suppose that all the influences and demographics between both iPhone users and "Other" SmartPhone users are the same, except that 75% of iPhone users have owned Apple products in the past, and only 10% of "Other" cell phone users have not. If this were the case, given how large the cell market is compared to the Mac/Music player martket, this conclusion would probably be invalid (it would suggest that those people who don't intend to buy an iPod or a Mac will be unlikely to buy an iPhone). If, instead, the statistic is about the same for "Other" cell phone users, then this conclusion may be valid (again, as long as there isn't some other significant difference).