苹果的竞争战略

    虽然我认为一家创业公司如果执行不利的话可能会面临更大的风险，不过我如何看待苹果的声明以及苹果对特定创业领域的影响呢？首先，我认为现在就下论断还太早，而且我会继续观察苹果会针对开发者推出什么样的服务条款。一旦我们知道了开发者可以利用苹果的这些创新做些什么，我们就会有更好的视角。

    不过让我猜测一下的话，我认为在忠诚卡和消费回馈领域，苹果的Passbook可能会压垮几家羽翼未丰的创业公司。在过去24个月里，这个领域涌入了大量的新进者，但只有很少的几家公司获得了强劲的发展势头，比如主要做忠诚消费回馈计划5Stars和团购网站ScoutMob，它们可能会是活得最久的两家公司。另外，我们还是要看苹果允许开发者利用它的哪些技术。可以说在这个拥挤的领域里，空气已经变得稀薄多了。一两家精英公司可能会幸存下来，其它公司的风险都很大。

    支付和地图是两个较大的类别。我不太担心该领域内领先创业公司的高速增长。部分原因是由于这两个领域的空间很大，聪明的、善于创新的创业公司总能找到合适的定位点进行创新、吸引顾客。此外，在粗略阅读了给开发者的信后（我没有对此进行深度研究），可以看出苹果似乎要对地图采取相对以开发者为中心的方法。不过如果你是一家主要做支付或是导航的公司，而且仍然依赖过时的技术或业务模式，那就值得担忧了。我认为苹果不可能完全控制这两个领域，因此创新仍然是需要的。此外还有一件让我感到高兴的事，那就是苹果将把智能语音助手Siri开放成一个平台服务。虽然苹果已经对Siri做了很多改进，但到目前为止，尽管Siri这个功能演示起来非常酷，但事实上经常使用Siri的用户并不多。或许随着Siri的不断改进，越来越多的人会发现Siri这项服务正变得不可或缺。不管尽管有这些声明，但Siri到目前依然不是一项平台服务，开发者也还不能利用Siri这个平台对应用进行扩展。我相信这不是件容易的事，因为苹果必须严格限制Siri在这方面的使用。不过其他开发者何时才能利用Siri来扩展应用程序，这的确是个值得探讨的问题。如果真有这一天，它将标志着Siri逐渐成为一个主流功能。

    总之，苹果世界开发者大会显示了苹果的行业领军者风采，显示了苹果是一个积极进取、理智精明的竞争者。而且它正在有效地推动iOS生态系统向前发展。

    本文作者Jay Jamison 2010年作为合作人加盟了蓝驰创投（BlueRun Ventures），他住在加州的门洛帕克市。他主要关注移动、消费和企业领域的早期投资机会。他在软件和互联网行业有12年的产品管理和营销经验。他曾以高级总监的身份领导过微软日本分公司的Windows业务集团，也担任过微软产品管理和营销方面的其他高级职务。另外他还利用风投资金成功创办了一家名叫Moonshoot的在线少儿英语教育机构。

    译者：朴成奎

    Despite my view that the larger risk is a startup failing to execute, how would I analyze these announcements for impacts on specific startup categories? First, I think it's too early to tell, and what I'll be watching for is how Apple's developer terms of service roll out. As we get clearer insight as to what developers can leverage and take advantage of with these new innovations, we'll have a better sense.

    But if I were going to speculate, here's what I'd say. Apple's Passbook app is the one that I think will be the big wrecking ball on several early stage startups in the space of loyalty cards and rewards programs. This space has had a whole host of early stage entrants over the past 24 months it seems. A very small number were gaining strong momentum, with 5Stars (loyalty) and ScoutMob (local merchant discovery) probably the two that I see as the private companies that are farthest along. Again, watch what Apple allows these developers to leverage its technology. I'd say that the air in this crowded space got a whole lot thinner. One or two of the cream of the crop will make it, the rest are really exposed.

    For payments and maps, both fantastically large categories, I'm less concerned about high growth leading startups in this space. Partly, this is due to the very fact that the market sizes of these spaces are so large that smart, innovative startups are going to find spots to innovate and attract customers. Also, at least in early reads of developer notes (I've not studied these deeply), Apple appears to be expressing relatively developer-centric approaches to maps in particular. And I'd caveat that if you're a payments or nav company relying on legacy technology and an outdated business model, then I'd say that's troubling. My perspective here is that Apple won't own these entire categories, as always innovation is required.

    What was missing? The one thing I'd love to hear more about is Apple opening Siri as a platform service. Much was made of the improvements and the doubling down on Siri. This is good, as to date it has seemed as though Siri was a cool demo feature that few actually used very much. Perhaps with the new improvements, more of us will find Siri more indispensable as a service. But despite these announcements, Siri is not yet a platform service that independent developers can take advantage of to extend their apps. I'm sure its hard as Apple would have to constrain tightly what Siri could do in this context. But it does seem a continuing open issue—when will other developers get the chance to build programs to take advantage of Siri? That day will mark the starting point, in my mind, of Siri becoming a mainstream feature.

    The bottom line, though, is that WWDC showed a company at the top of its game, a company that is an aggressive and savvy competitor -- and one that is pushing its ecosystem forward effectively.

    Jay Jamison (@Jay_Jamison), Partner, joined BlueRun Ventures in November 2010 and is based in Menlo Park. He focuses on early stage mobile, consumer and enterprise opportunities. Jay has 12 years of product management and marketing experience in the software and internet industry. Previous experience includes leading Microsoft Japan's Windows Business Group as Senior Director, and other senior level roles at Microsoft in product management and marketing. Jay also successfully founded and led Moonshoot, a venture-backed online English education service for children.