There is another so-called iPhone-Killer in the trenches. This time from the most unlikely of all candidates: Motorola pits the new “Droid” vs. „the holy“ iPhone. I think this whole conversation is pointless, as you can easily see when you look at all the fuss about the Palm Pre and where it stands today. I am convinced that no matter what Motorola will feature or how loud they will cry with any service provider backing it up, the same will happen to the Droid. But then the Motorola Droid has a secret weapon the Palm Pre did not have: Google Android.

But lets take a look back at how this rise of the new hype started. I had the honor to do a lot of freelance work for Nokia some years ago and abandoned ship for a related industry, just when the first rumors of Apple´s new divine gadget hit the game. At that time we introduced Nokia´s latest tech-candybar or how people called it lovingly: “brick” - the E90 Communicator, and this slick new do-it-all was stirring quite some waves on the Cebit 2007. Everybody knew that Apple was up to something and I remember fondly that we used to joke about how Steve Jobs could even dream of releasing a single cell phone in a market, that at the time was over saturated and produced an overpowering range of devices for about every other imaginary niche.

But then a developer from another company (whose name is irrelevant here), came up to me to present his own latest prototype that, although feeling clumsy, actually sported a feature that I had always missed, and still am missing today and that could actually spark a warm, bubbling feeling in my belly: it had a native support for two SIM cards, switching seamlessly from one network to the next between calls, so you could have just one phone for your business and your private life combined without switching the cards.

I instantly knew it was time for a change, because all the major players overstepped themselves to show even more and more features, while the people on the street still wondered, just what exactly had become of their phones, while some useful features like that were purposefully ignored. In retrospect, it is still my personal conviction that this feature of seamlessly supporting two SIM cards could spark some new life into the sales process alone, where “feature-f***ing” is still relevant for people, and not just being one of the cool crowd. As every major player is thinking about how to beat the iPhone right now, that took away most of the market share, there is no way to discard a real benefit like that anymore.

I think it is about time to take a glimpse behind the veil of disillusions, to see how the overpowering conquest of the iPhone could have been possible at all:

I recall that LG showed a cellphone with a 10 Megapixel camera in the same pavilion, that never even hit the European streets. That reflects the spirit of the time in a very plain way. Apple´s timing could not have been better in fact, as no one knew what else to feature and people were already overpowered with too many choices and gadgets. I am not saying, it is not cool to have all of this in just one cell phone, but the missing link was that no one single device was capable of all that was wanted, as the phones were segmented too much to perfectly fit one niche or the other - without being able to do it all - by sheer purpose to sell even more phones. People were just annoyed with that fact and were looking for that one thing that could do it all, exactly when the iPhone hit the streets: a touchscreen powered and slick feeling device with the coolest looking interface around, it was sure to be a winner. All bases were covered by a glassy-eyed crowd of tech-evangelists to create all the needed buzz about it, and it was completely underestimated by every competitor. In fact they did not even know what to do about it and told themselves to wait until the storm blew over. No one could have imagined that the created hype was strong enough to tackle a few market segments at the same time and present a new idol to the people looking for directions. Tying the iPhone up to exclusive providers did not seem like a smart move at the time, but keeping availability low to stay high on demand has worked for ages in every market, so this was a really clever move nevertheless, no matter what my personal opinion of that alliance and the politics involved might be. Opening the API for developers and creating the App Store was the final genius move that was needed to secure the market share of this one – at that time - not yet omnipotent device.

Overconfident and with no real direction in the market, the steep rise of the iPhone came as a complete surprise to the big players back then and David took Goliath by the balls just when the fat giant was all drunk with success. In hindsight everything seems clear and simple, but when playing the game while trying to cover all your bases, clairvoyance is rarely a talent shown by managers and making bold moves not for the faint hearted.

Now that time has taught the market this lesson, every company in every industry can only learn and copy the following essential principles of the iPhone´s success story, if they do not want to loose market share to the competition:

1. there is always room for more growth when you give your customers what they are looking for

2. keep your products simple and hassle free

3. a product can be beautiful and still do its job at the same time. Sex sells, so does good design!

4. empower your products with a Must-Have-Feature and back it up with many supporting by-products

5. build an amazing nimbus of coolness around you and your products that creates a lot of buzz

6. keep the availability low or allow only restricted access to stay high on demand

7. allow for open development and support around your products from a dedicated user base and developers that can earn cash with it

8. unite all these efforts in one community driven store and share your sales revenue

9. keep the product range interactive, complimentary and compatible to the next version