Ten percent better is not enough

The mobile operating system market is ruled by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Other contenders are striving for market share, and they face quite the challenge.

The contenders are Microsoft's Windows Mobile (or whatever they are calling it now), Mozilla's Firefox OS, Cyanogen's operating system, and Samsung and Intel's Tizen. (One could add Blackberry to the list.)

The challenge that all of these contenders face is one of value. They must deliver a product that is superior to the existing iOS and Android products. Delivering a product of lower value is meaningless, and matching value is a losing proposition due to the cost of switching.

It's not enough to simply be a little bit better than the established leaders. To win the hearts of users (a significant number of users), their product must be clearly better. The benefits of the product must be obvious and large enough to offset the cost of changing from the existing.

Apple did not have this problem. When they introduced the iPhone, there was no competition. The existing phones provided less functionality.

Google did have this problem, as it competed with the (then) existing iPhone. Google's advantage was an open platform -- or so it advertised. (Also, Google was not Apple -- or Microsoft -- which worked to its advantage.

Today's contenders must provide something better than Apple's iOS and Google's Android. The advantage must be clear, and it must be greater than a small increase.

One would think that Microsoft has an advantage, in that they can leverage the existing corporate infrastructure of Windows hardware. Yet this is not the case, as phones and tablets remain personal devices -- corporations have not figured out how to use them. (Some organizations have started using tablets and phones, but their use tends to be limited to specific applications.)

Any mobile OS marketer, to gain ground against the current leaders, will have to provide something much better than the current products, as judged by individuals.