The iPad is the store. Working on a new construct to determine who is best at each of the primary phases of buying behavior.

In the smartphone wars, I spend a good deal of space discussing Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and very few others.

Each of these are large, for-profit businesses. A business seeks to make a profit by selling (someone) (something).

If we deconstruct the selling process, it is composed of four broad acts:

• Search
• Evaluate
• Purchase
• Use

When I overlay that with smartphone and mobile web data, we get:

• Search: Google (Amazon secondarily)
• Evaluate: Facebook (Google secondarily)
• Purchase: Amazon (Apple secondariliy)
• Use: Apple

There is something there, I'm sure, I just haven't figured out exactly what it means going forward.

But each of the four companies above want to be involved in every single transaction, purchase, purchase decision, process and entry point. And we are probably distracting ourselves with analyses on patent lawsuits and acquisitions. Instead, every activity of these four leaders (and others) may best be viewed through this lens: maintaining their lead in one area of the basic purchase process and extending into another area.