Congrats to Qik and Flixwagon

As a start-up, nothing is more rewarding, more gratifying, more empowering than being joining the big leagues. To reach the top of your game and be welcomed into the elite group is an honor not lightly bestowed on just any company.

So, it is with great fanfare and enjoyment that I congratulate mobile video companies Qik and Flixwagon for being declared dead right alongside RIM and Microsoft.
First, we have Michael Arrington doing up mushroom clouds when it comes to what he thinks Apple is going to do to RIM and Microsoft. Yeah, iPhone is going to kill RIM and Microsoft's mobile business. Right. Next fantasy?

And the next fantasy comes right on cue. We have Robert Scoble using the "kill" phrase with respect to Qik and Flixwagon. It seems Robert found another company in the same space and because at this very moment, the new flavor of his month has features that the other two don't have at this very moment, the other two must, according to Scoble, surely die.

I could spend an hour ranting about these blog posts, in particular Scoble's who should know that it's only software and the words "next release" usually cover the feature hopping. And let's not even debate the whole notion of different apps for different users, etc, etc.

Let us just do two things.

Item one: A hearty congrats to both Qik and Flixwagon. When you are declared dead these days, you are in good company. Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Amazon, Ebay, etc, have all be declared dead at one time or another. Sometimes they get dead multiple times! So, well done, takes a lot to get into this crowd.

Item two: The lesson for you is simple. Take it all in as feedback, adjust as required, and ignore the rest.

Comments

[Keith Glover]

Item two is good advice...what I have found interesting is that when people give you feedback they almost always are telling you what they need to hear. Our biggest obstacle is making adjustments to our own negative feedback. Unfortunately ignoring yourself is hard to do ;) however, pushing though their own mental barriers has proven fruitful for many people / companies.

[Thomas Purves]

Ha. Good post Rick. I too think that reports of the death of RIM, Qik and windows mobile for that matter (look what HTC is doing with it these days) are greatly exaggerated.

What is great to see though is a lot of healthy competition and the pace of innovation quickening. Especially in the case of mobile software and devices. Now then, if we could just get our carriers to offer such terrible dilemmas of compelling alternatives...

[Larry Borsato]

What Microsoft Windows Mobile business? ;)

Seriously though, there isn't really a smartphone market; just email devices like the BlackBerry, and the iPhone. I expect that the others will just disappear.

When was the last time you saw a Windows Mobile device in the wild?

[Paul Marshall]

One of the great things about bloggers, entrepreneurs and bleeding edge consumers and businesses is that they have a mind of their own. While reading Scoble et al is fun, entertaining and informative it is important that we all form our own opinions as consumers. As entrepreneurs some of the denouncers have louder voices than others and their negative positions tend to echo for a while longer but if we called uncle every time someone doubted or thought we would fail...where would we be!?

[Alex G]

Windows Mobile dead? MS just built an XBox on a mobile chip... they're about to rock the mobile world.

Those people thinking Windows Mobile or everything Microsoft is on the brink of extinction need to do their homework. MS is seriously challenging the competitors in every field it has entered.

If you think Apple or Google or Sun or Oracle or Adobe or IBM or Sony is more concerned with any other competitor than MS, think again. MS has some seriously sick future space age technology in the works. They're in the game to kick everyone's ass all at the same time.

[Stewart]

Larry, guess you've never heard of Symbian?