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Two Microsofts

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Re: Two Microsofts

#21

Post by untog »

ekianjo wrote: post #18
ben336 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make their money off the hardware though. And plenty of people use Apple hardware without using Apple services. I have an iPhone/iPad/Mac, and don't use Apple services for email/document/storage/photo backup etc. I appreciate their OS software and hardware, but for the most part think there are better options for pretty much all of their services.

Does not matter. When you buy an Apple product, you are basically supporting their services as well. And as far as I know, you are more or less forced to have an iTune account if you have an Apple device, right ? So you are tied in to their services at least for the distribution of applications (on mobiles).

You can't say "where they make their money" doesn't matter. Of course it does.

An iTunes account is required for App Store purchases, but that's about it. You can load on Google e-mail, maps and browser after that, if you wish. The point is that Apple doesn't make money from its services, so it has less of an incentive to stop you.

Re: Two Microsofts

#22

Post by chj »

Spearchucker wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Office on iOS and Android is (in my opinion) geared at being able to read and maybe edit Office documents. While these apps can certainly create Office documents, they're not really suited to it. One would ideally do that using a laptop or PC. And that then simply makes mobile a way of further entrenching Office - people who use it at work can now use it on their devices. Peop…

Totally agree.

MS doesn't really have any choice but to offer office for free in the age of App Stores, and more importantly free alternatives are everywhere. Apple pages/numbers aren't going anywhere outside their garden, but Google docs are real deal. It's painful for MS to take this move, but it is really impressive to see them coming out of the comfort zone.

Clearly the strategy of MS is to expand their services across all platforms, and by eliminating differences between platforms, then they can rule again.

Interesting to see how this plays out in the next few years.

Re: Two Microsofts

#23

Post by Aloha »

I think the guys enterprise map is off - while the future might be the cloud, the current is still firmly rooted in windows desktop, windows server, active directory and exchange.

Re: Two Microsofts

#24

Post by jmduke »

padmanabhan01 wrote: post #17
monkbent wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a hardware company. Your confusion comes from not following the money. Their software and services exist to differentiate the hardware and allow for a profit margin. The Microsoft corollary would be if Apple offered iTunes, iCloud, etc for Android.

//Apple is a hardware company. How is a company that makes OS X, iOS, iCloud services not a software company? Sure it sells hardware, but not hardware that's a brick.. People buy the hardware so they can use the software which pretty much means they sell a package that includes both hardware and software..

Ben means that the end goal of OS X, iOS, and iCloud are to sell more hardware, not to be individually thriving SKUs (as evidenced by the declining price of any non-hardware offering by Apple over the past decade). Every (or, at least almost every) decision made at Apple is made with the goal of improving the experience of owning Apple hardware, which is their main profit center.

This is a useful way to understand Apple, but not companies in general. Movie theaters make the majority of their profit off of concessions, but they are not popcorn companies.

Re: Two Microsofts

#25

Post by ekianjo »

untog wrote: post #21
ekianjo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not matter. When you buy an Apple product, you are basically supporting their services as well. And as far as I know, you are more or less forced to have an iTune account if you have an Apple device, right ? So you are tied in to their services at least for the distribution of applications (on mobiles).

You can't say "where they make their money" doesn't matter. Of course it does. An iTunes account is required for App Store purchases, but that's about it. You can load on Google e-mail, maps and browser after that, if you wish. The point is that Apple doesn't make money from its services, so it has less of an incentive to stop you.

ITunes is a distribution service. They make money off it. It's like saying "Valve is just doing games" where most of their money comes from selling the contents of others. When you have a monopoly on distribution on a specific platform, that's a service where people are locked into using. I don't know how to explain it in any other way to you.

Re: Two Microsofts

#26

Post by cwyers »

"The line of demarcation, though, is not services and devices, but rather enterprise and consumer."

They didn't keep this a secret, man.

Re: Two Microsofts

#27

Post by untog »

ekianjo wrote: post #25
untog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't say "where they make their money" doesn't matter. Of course it does. An iTunes account is required for App Store purchases, but that's about it. You can load on Google e-mail, maps and browser after that, if you wish. The point is that Apple doesn't make money from its services, so it has less of an incentive to stop you.

ITunes is a distribution service. They make money off it. It's like saying "Valve is just doing games" where most of their money comes from selling the contents of others. When you have a monopoly on distribution on a specific platform, that's a service where people are locked into using. I don't know how to explain it in any other way to you.

No-one is arguing that they make money from it. Nor is anyone arguing that Apple doesn't do services. They are arguing that they make far more money on hardware sales than services, and thus are primarily a hardware company.

Re: Two Microsofts

#28

Post by ekianjo »

untog wrote: post #27
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITunes is a distribution service. They make money off it. It's like saying "Valve is just doing games" where most of their money comes from selling the contents of others. When you have a monopoly on distribution on a specific platform, that's a service where people are locked into using. I don't know how to explain it in any other way to you.

No-one is arguing that they make money from it. Nor is anyone arguing that Apple doesn't do services. They are arguing that they make far more money on hardware sales than services, and thus are primarily a hardware company.

Do you have any source such as the latest annual report as to how much more they make on hardware vs software/content? Is it really far more ?

Re: Two Microsofts

#29

Post by roc »

Spearchucker wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Office on iOS and Android is (in my opinion) geared at being able to read and maybe edit Office documents. While these apps can certainly create Office documents, they're not really suited to it. One would ideally do that using a laptop or PC. And that then simply makes mobile a way of further entrenching Office - people who use it at work can now use it on their devices. Peop…

> "That was Microsoft coming late to the party."

Late? They threw the party. Damn near a decade ago.

Re: Two Microsofts

#30

Post by neolefty »

untog wrote: post #27
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITunes is a distribution service. They make money off it. It's like saying "Valve is just doing games" where most of their money comes from selling the contents of others. When you have a monopoly on distribution on a specific platform, that's a service where people are locked into using. I don't know how to explain it in any other way to you.

No-one is arguing that they make money from it. Nor is anyone arguing that Apple doesn't do services. They are arguing that they make far more money on hardware sales than services, and thus are primarily a hardware company.

From their Q4 results, as analyzed by AnandTech, about 11% of their revenue is from "iTunes/Software/Services". The rest is hardware.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8633/apple-q4-fy-2014-fiscal-r...

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