Discuss the below in detail:
Response 1:
I choose the iPhone and I will disclose that I'm very passionate about Apple and its products. I'm a former Apple investor as well. I believe the iPhone stands out in the market and I will specifically speak about the latest iPhone X. The iPhone X has continued a trend of evolutionary incremental excellence that Apple has offered their customers for many long years. I would even say that the iPhone X has some revolutionary features that makes it stand out from the competition and gives us a glimpse of the future. Why do I believe this? Well, as a tech enthusiast, I've been using smartphones since their inception, both iOS and Android, and iPhone X gave me an experience unlike any other. So, when the iPhone first came to market, it gave us: The full screen smartphone experience. It introduced us to accurate and intuitive touch controls. It introduced us to the App Store and the iTunes store and in turn to applications and media on the go. It introduced us to Apple's "lock-in" (2016) ecosystem that has evolved to the successful, popular, and effective iCloud universe. It eventually introduced us to Apple Music. It eventually introduced us to Apple Pay. It eventually introduced us to Siri. With the iPhone X specifically, Apple gave us: The first ever real full-screen smartphone experience. The first ever mass used advanced facial recognition security. Console level graphics for gaming. It is waterproof. It has wireless charging. So, the competition, well, I'll try to be as unbiased as I can be. The iPhone's major real competitor is Samsung's Galaxy lineup. And in brief, it offers a lot of what the iPhone offers and I will state some major differences: It doesn't have Siri. It doesn't have Apple's App Store. It doesn't have Apple Pay. It doesn't have iCloud. It doesn't have the iPhone's X's graphical firepower. Although the Galaxy offers alternatives to most of what I've mentioned, they do not stack up against the iPhone. Interestingly, the differentiator that this boils down to is the "lock-in" (2016) ecosystem that Apple offers its customers. Samsung's Galaxy Android's Google ecosystem is significant but not as personal and user-friendly as Apple's.
Response 2:
I chose Drift, a power start-up that is radically changing the way people receive and pay for their power needs. The company officially launched in New York in July of 2017. What elements of the company's product or service were disruptive when it came to market? The idea is a peer-to-peer utility industry revolution. Traditional utilities determine how much power to provide customers 24 hours ahead of time, predicting demand based on average monthly consumption from the previous year. In the event demand exceeds these estimates, utilities rely on power plants known as peakers, who charge a great deal more than baseload power plants. Drift on the other hand, provides a more accurate daily forecast of demand based on blockchain machine learning and peer-to-peer trading. When their demand spikes, Drift engages its network of small-scale producers to fill in gaps with low-cost energy. Those small-scale producers include homeowners with solar panels, family owned hydro dams, and large commercial buildings with excess power. Combined these strategies, better forecasting and cutting out peakers, saves customers money. What are the unique features and benefits of the product or service? The greatest benefit, is of course, the savings. Customers are saving up to 20% off traditional utility costs. Cost savings aren't the only real benefit of Drift's model however, they also provide opportunity for something they call "prosumers." "Prosumers" are consumers who also produce resources through solar PV or demand response range types, giving consumers the opportunity to monetize investments in renewable energy. Drift doesn't think of itself as a utility company. Instead, they consider themselves a software services firm for both buyers an sellers of electricity. They are changing the paradigm and creating a "subscription" service based on lower costs through the use of their proprietary operating system. How does this product or service measure up to the competition? At present, the company is still small and very localized. While they can save customers money, they are in a very select market with customers ranging in the hundreds, not thousands or millions like their competitors. The company is still very young. Karl Rabago, executive director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at the Pace Law School and a former Texas government utility commissioner has said that it could be 5 to 10 years before there is meaningful blockchain traffic. He also points out that "Drift can pass on more savings, but it can't do that without also more risk. I wouldn't want to say it's the Wild West out there if you go with an ESCO, but if there were a run on the market, Drift will stop serving you long before Con Ed. Not just because Con Ed has a bigger balance sheet, but because it's contracting with suppliers that are more expensive but more secure."