The bigger competitor to MS is Google Apps, particularly Google Docs what sense does it make to put office on android first, 1) its much harder develop on android because of the know fragmentation and there less of a market to sell to there as well. By covering iOS MS is able to limit users going over to Google docs and iWorks at the same time.. That's why they developed for it first. Then as their cloud strategy develops they will go after google docs.. Finally competition for the first time in what 20 years, yes!
[B]Question:[/B] Why target Apple's minority tablet platform over Android which supposedly owns a 61.9 percent market share?
[B]Answer:[/B] Because market share isn't as important as you think it is.
Market share is simply the percentage of things sold over the last quarter. ALL things.
Tablet market share includes iPads, Samsung tablets, Asus tablets, [I]and[/I] all those cheap terrible tablets sold around the world.
But Android tablets make up a lot of units sold and thus a huge percentage of market share... so that's the clear winner, right?
Not so fast.
You can't just look at market share and make a decision based on that. You [I]also[/I] have to consider the customers who might buy your app.
Developers don't care how many units are sold... developers will go where there is a better chance to make money.
And it's been like that for a long time. For instance... the iPhone has NEVER had more than 25% smartphone market share. And yet... it's always been a hugely successful platform.
Why?
Because iPhone customers spend more money on apps, games and accessories. It doesn't matter what their market share happens to be. And the same is true for tablets.
The iPad may only have 34% of the tablet market... but there's a better chance you'll be able to sell your app.
Oh, and why just use Apple's sold numbers against shipped numbers? We all know how that makes no sense, especially since Apple does, in a roundabout way, give shipped numbers. When Apple talks about days or weeks of supply "in the channel" that's shipped devices. You multiply the average number of devices sold that previous quarter per day by the number of days supply in the channel, and then add that number to the total number sold, and you magically get the number shipped. But no one uses that number. It's very convenient, but I almost never see it done, except occasionally on Seeking Alpha. I've mentioned this to a number of writers on financial sites, and the response is something like; Well, yeah, I guess, that should be done. when I ask why they don't do it, the reply is; Uh, no one else does it.
Well, not true. Apple does give shipped, not sold numbers, thats what they give. You have to work out "sold", so thats the roundabout way. But you are right in not trusting the others.
But apparently, they first came out with the ad supported version which made them very little money, and so then came out with the paid version that sold very poorly. They did talk in a press conference about how poorly the paid version sold when compared to the iOS version.
From three years ago: 'In another bellwether for Android’s growing impact on the mobile gaming industry, Angry Birds is producing roughly even revenue from both Google’s platform and iOS, says its recently-funded maker Rovio."
Rovio is not a good poster-child for claiming developers don't make money on Android. It really doesn't help your argument to keep citing them. I'm sure you can find a valid example but Angry Birds is not one of them. http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/03/13/angry-birds-android-ios/
I don't imagine Microsoft Office will do very well on Android either. I downloaded the new version of Office on my Android device and tried it out. It wasn't very impressive. Android already has better office apps. Also, Google Docs seems to be slowly taking over in many environments and the need for MS Office declines more everyday. Releasing a version for Android tablets won't help them stay relevant as there are already better alternatives. Microsoft will likely have to up their game if they want to succeed in the Android ecosystem.
None of this pro-Apple talk makes any sense. Almost no sane investor on Wall Street would bet on on Apple's survival against Google and Android. Most are sure that Apple will only continue dropping from the 2012 starting point of its infamous death spiral. Apple is still being valued for zero growth and even Microsoft is seen as having better growth prospects than Apple. Microsoft is probably just making a mistake betting on Apple's iPad or simply had too much money invested already to kill the project. Google and Android's market share completely obliterate every other computing platform on the planet. The general consensus is that without Steve Jobs running Apple, the company will not be successful at any venture. It just seems so obvious that most industry leaders are certain Apple will fail. As it is, Microsoft's offering MS Office for iPad has increased Microsoft's value, but on Apple it has had the opposite effect. Most analysts disregard Apple having any hooks into the Enterprise at all. Most companies with strong positions in the Enterprise are not considered doomed companies. Apple is, so any Enterprise presence Apple has must be rather minor. All this boasting about Apple's strength in the post-PC era and it appears to me that Apple has been hit the hardest of all tech companies in terms of value. Apple appears to be struggling merely to hold its ground. Watch how Apple blows another financial quarter while Tim Cook proudly smiles.
I don't imagine Microsoft Office will do very well on Android either. I downloaded the new version of Office on my Android device and tried it out. It wasn't very impressive. Android already has better office apps. Also, Google Docs seems to be slowly taking over in many environments and the need for MS Office declines more everyday. Releasing a version for Android tablets won't help them stay relevant as there are already better alternatives. Microsoft will likely have to up their game if they want to succeed in the Android ecosystem.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/031914-google-apps-279871.html
"For decades, basic office software didn't pose any major questions for IT departments - you bought Microsoft Office, and then worked on keeping it up-to-date, because there simply wasn't much else available that made sense for the enterprise. By the mid-1990s, Microsoft had ruthlessly dispatched competitors like Novell and was essentially unchallenged in the enterprise software market.
Over the past several years, however, Microsoft's dominion over productivity software use at the organizational level has been slowly but steadily eroded, due in large part to the emergence of a new cloud-based competitor, in the form of Google Apps. . . "
None of this pro-Apple talk makes any sense. Almost no sane investor on Wall Street would bet on on Apple's survival against Google and Android. Most are sure that Apple will only continue dropping from the 2012 starting point of its infamous death spiral. Apple is still being valued for zero growth and even Microsoft is seen as having better growth prospects than Apple. Microsoft is probably just making a mistake betting on Apple's iPad or simply had too much money invested already to kill the project. Google and Android's market share completely obliterate every other computing platform on the planet. The general consensus is that without Steve Jobs running Apple, the company will not be successful at any venture. It just seems so obvious that most industry leaders are certain Apple will fail. As it is, Microsoft's offering MS Office for iPad has increased Microsoft's value, but on Apple it has had the opposite effect. Most analysts disregard Apple having any hooks into the Enterprise at all. Most companies with strong positions in the Enterprise are not considered doomed companies. Apple is, so any Enterprise presence Apple has must be rather minor. All this boasting about Apple's strength in the post-PC era and it appears to me that Apple has been hit the hardest of all tech companies in terms of value. Apple appears to be struggling merely to hold its ground. Watch how Apple blows another financial quarter while Tim Cook proudly smiles.
Can't believe I actually wasted time reading through that.
Question: Why target Apple's minority tablet platform over Android which supposedly owns a 61.9 percent market share?
Answer: Because market share isn't as important as you think it is.
Market share is simply the percentage of things sold over the last quarter. ALL things.
Tablet market share includes iPads, Samsung tablets, Asus tablets, and all those cheap terrible tablets sold around the world.
But Android tablets make up a lot of units sold and thus a huge percentage of market share... so that's the clear winner, right?
Not so fast.
You can't just look at market share and make a decision based on that. You also have to consider the customers who might buy your app.
Developers don't care how many units are sold... developers will go where there is a better chance to make money.
And it's been like that for a long time. For instance... the iPhone has NEVER had more than 25% smartphone market share. And yet... it's always been a hugely successful platform.
Why?
Because iPhone customers spend more money on apps, games and accessories. It doesn't matter what their market share happens to be. And the same is true for tablets.
The iPad may only have 34% of the tablet market... but there's a better chance you'll be able to sell your app.
Tell it to the analysts and media seeking to manipulate Wall St.
AI and DED in particular, have long held a stance of looking behind the numbers to expose the fallacy of "marketshare" as the only useful metric.
You follow the herd by naively pre-supposing that market share is the be-all, end-all for success, and then write a lengthy article wondering why MSFT didn't follow in the herd's tracks!
Wonderful.
One does need to imagine some secret information MSFT may have used to make the decision - it's all publicly on display, if one is willing at all to look past the market share number: there is the 2-1 greater profits iOS app developers realize (I.e. IPad users are more likely to buy Office); there is the 80% iPad web surfing statistics (I.e. IPad tablets actually get used); there are the demographics that suggest more affluent iPad users; there's the fact that iPads already dominate in the industries MSFT wants to sell into - education and small businesses. Just about any metric - other than raw market share - favors developing for iOS rather than Android first. One has to be blind not to see it.
The bigger competitor to MS is Google Apps, particularly Google Docs
Not a lot of people seem to realise that Microsoft's a bigger competitor to Google's core revenue stream than Apple. On Yahoo News, there are comments about why they feature articles about things that people have done with the iPhone like photography-related when 'Android phones are just as good and cheaper'. One of those reasons is that people actually do interesting things with their Apple products but Yahoo is a major competitor to Google, why would they feature Google's products?
There's a group of people who just have an 'anything but Apple' mentality so they'll use Windows and Android and complain about everything Apple without taking much thought to the idea that the two products they have are from fiercer competitors than the company they hate, whose products they most likely don't have.
Anyway, the issue here isn't really about Android as a whole, just Android tablets. Office is available for Android and can run on tablets, it just uses the phone UI:
A more accurate title would be why did Microsoft make a tablet version of Office for the iPad first. Probably the same reason hardly anyone makes tablet optimized versions of their apps for Android. Tm Cook said there were 500,000 tablet optimized apps for iPad vs 1,000 for Android:
Microsoft also announced that Office Mobile (iPhone and Android phone) are now free.
Took out my iPhone to check the top Apps and Office Mobile was at #3. Went to Google Play and it's #36.
Guess we know which platform has users more interested with doing actual work. Seems like MS made the right choice.
Or, as pointed out above, Android already has superior options. The fact that Office Mobile is at #3 signals to me that iOS had poor alternatives. This new version of Office Mobile is far from the best option on Android.
Comments
[B]Answer:[/B] Because market share isn't as important as you think it is.
Market share is simply the percentage of things sold over the last quarter. ALL things.
Tablet market share includes iPads, Samsung tablets, Asus tablets, [I]and[/I] all those cheap terrible tablets sold around the world.
But Android tablets make up a lot of units sold and thus a huge percentage of market share... so that's the clear winner, right?
Not so fast.
You can't just look at market share and make a decision based on that. You [I]also[/I] have to consider the customers who might buy your app.
Developers don't care how many units are sold... developers will go where there is a better chance to make money.
And it's been like that for a long time. For instance... the iPhone has NEVER had more than 25% smartphone market share. And yet... it's always been a hugely successful platform.
Why?
Because iPhone customers spend more money on apps, games and accessories. It doesn't matter what their market share happens to be. And the same is true for tablets.
The iPad may only have 34% of the tablet market... but there's a better chance you'll be able to sell your app.
Oh, and why just use Apple's sold numbers against shipped numbers? We all know how that makes no sense, especially since Apple does, in a roundabout way, give shipped numbers. When Apple talks about days or weeks of supply "in the channel" that's shipped devices. You multiply the average number of devices sold that previous quarter per day by the number of days supply in the channel, and then add that number to the total number sold, and you magically get the number shipped. But no one uses that number. It's very convenient, but I almost never see it done, except occasionally on Seeking Alpha. I've mentioned this to a number of writers on financial sites, and the response is something like; Well, yeah, I guess, that should be done. when I ask why they don't do it, the reply is; Uh, no one else does it.
Well, not true. Apple does give shipped, not sold numbers, thats what they give. You have to work out "sold", so thats the roundabout way. But you are right in not trusting the others.
From three years ago:
'In another bellwether for Android’s growing impact on the mobile gaming industry, Angry Birds is producing roughly even revenue from both Google’s platform and iOS, says its recently-funded maker Rovio."
Rovio is not a good poster-child for claiming developers don't make money on Android. It really doesn't help your argument to keep citing them. I'm sure you can find a valid example but Angry Birds is not one of them.
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/03/13/angry-birds-android-ios/
I don't imagine Microsoft Office will do very well on Android either. I downloaded the new version of Office on my Android device and tried it out. It wasn't very impressive. Android already has better office apps. Also, Google Docs seems to be slowly taking over in many environments and the need for MS Office declines more everyday. Releasing a version for Android tablets won't help them stay relevant as there are already better alternatives. Microsoft will likely have to up their game if they want to succeed in the Android ecosystem.
Honestly?
Just a minor nit, but Apple's software is NOT free. It is included in the price of the product [ie Numbers for newly purchased iPhones].
None of this pro-Apple talk makes any sense. Almost no sane investor on Wall Street would bet on on Apple's survival against Google and Android. Most are sure that Apple will only continue dropping from the 2012 starting point of its infamous death spiral. Apple is still being valued for zero growth and even Microsoft is seen as having better growth prospects than Apple. Microsoft is probably just making a mistake betting on Apple's iPad or simply had too much money invested already to kill the project. Google and Android's market share completely obliterate every other computing platform on the planet. The general consensus is that without Steve Jobs running Apple, the company will not be successful at any venture. It just seems so obvious that most industry leaders are certain Apple will fail. As it is, Microsoft's offering MS Office for iPad has increased Microsoft's value, but on Apple it has had the opposite effect. Most analysts disregard Apple having any hooks into the Enterprise at all. Most companies with strong positions in the Enterprise are not considered doomed companies. Apple is, so any Enterprise presence Apple has must be rather minor. All this boasting about Apple's strength in the post-PC era and it appears to me that Apple has been hit the hardest of all tech companies in terms of value. Apple appears to be struggling merely to hold its ground. Watch how Apple blows another financial quarter while Tim Cook proudly smiles.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/031914-google-apps-279871.html
"For decades, basic office software didn't pose any major questions for IT departments - you bought Microsoft Office, and then worked on keeping it up-to-date, because there simply wasn't much else available that made sense for the enterprise. By the mid-1990s, Microsoft had ruthlessly dispatched competitors like Novell and was essentially unchallenged in the enterprise software market.
Over the past several years, however, Microsoft's dominion over productivity software use at the organizational level has been slowly but steadily eroded, due in large part to the emergence of a new cloud-based competitor, in the form of Google Apps. . . "
You might want to stop listening to anyone saying that Apple is doomed. That's complete nonsense.
Because iOS users are Microsoft's best chance of making any money from their Office-on-iOS venture.
This has been mentioned before in a variety of other developer-related contexts over the years. It's fact.
None of this pro-Apple talk makes any sense. Almost no sane investor on Wall Street would bet on on Apple's survival against Google and Android. Most are sure that Apple will only continue dropping from the 2012 starting point of its infamous death spiral. Apple is still being valued for zero growth and even Microsoft is seen as having better growth prospects than Apple. Microsoft is probably just making a mistake betting on Apple's iPad or simply had too much money invested already to kill the project. Google and Android's market share completely obliterate every other computing platform on the planet. The general consensus is that without Steve Jobs running Apple, the company will not be successful at any venture. It just seems so obvious that most industry leaders are certain Apple will fail. As it is, Microsoft's offering MS Office for iPad has increased Microsoft's value, but on Apple it has had the opposite effect. Most analysts disregard Apple having any hooks into the Enterprise at all. Most companies with strong positions in the Enterprise are not considered doomed companies. Apple is, so any Enterprise presence Apple has must be rather minor. All this boasting about Apple's strength in the post-PC era and it appears to me that Apple has been hit the hardest of all tech companies in terms of value. Apple appears to be struggling merely to hold its ground. Watch how Apple blows another financial quarter while Tim Cook proudly smiles.
Can't believe I actually wasted time reading through that.
Another to add to the block list.
Question: Why target Apple's minority tablet platform over Android which supposedly owns a 61.9 percent market share?
Answer: Because market share isn't as important as you think it is.
Market share is simply the percentage of things sold over the last quarter. ALL things.
Tablet market share includes iPads, Samsung tablets, Asus tablets, and all those cheap terrible tablets sold around the world.
But Android tablets make up a lot of units sold and thus a huge percentage of market share... so that's the clear winner, right?
Not so fast.
You can't just look at market share and make a decision based on that. You also have to consider the customers who might buy your app.
Developers don't care how many units are sold... developers will go where there is a better chance to make money.
And it's been like that for a long time. For instance... the iPhone has NEVER had more than 25% smartphone market share. And yet... it's always been a hugely successful platform.
Why?
Because iPhone customers spend more money on apps, games and accessories. It doesn't matter what their market share happens to be. And the same is true for tablets.
The iPad may only have 34% of the tablet market... but there's a better chance you'll be able to sell your app.
Tell it to the analysts and media seeking to manipulate Wall St.
AI and DED in particular, have long held a stance of looking behind the numbers to expose the fallacy of "marketshare" as the only useful metric.
Microsoft also announced that Office Mobile (iPhone and Android phone) are now free.
Took out my iPhone to check the top Apps and Office Mobile was at #3. Went to Google Play and it's #36.
Guess we know which platform has users more interested with doing actual work. Seems like MS made the right choice.
Honestly?
Of course, the T100 runs x86 Windows 8.1.
Wonderful.
One does need to imagine some secret information MSFT may have used to make the decision - it's all publicly on display, if one is willing at all to look past the market share number: there is the 2-1 greater profits iOS app developers realize (I.e. IPad users are more likely to buy Office); there is the 80% iPad web surfing statistics (I.e. IPad tablets actually get used); there are the demographics that suggest more affluent iPad users; there's the fact that iPads already dominate in the industries MSFT wants to sell into - education and small businesses. Just about any metric - other than raw market share - favors developing for iOS rather than Android first. One has to be blind not to see it.
Not a lot of people seem to realise that Microsoft's a bigger competitor to Google's core revenue stream than Apple. On Yahoo News, there are comments about why they feature articles about things that people have done with the iPhone like photography-related when 'Android phones are just as good and cheaper'. One of those reasons is that people actually do interesting things with their Apple products but Yahoo is a major competitor to Google, why would they feature Google's products?
There's a group of people who just have an 'anything but Apple' mentality so they'll use Windows and Android and complain about everything Apple without taking much thought to the idea that the two products they have are from fiercer competitors than the company they hate, whose products they most likely don't have.
Anyway, the issue here isn't really about Android as a whole, just Android tablets. Office is available for Android and can run on tablets, it just uses the phone UI:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.officehub
A more accurate title would be why did Microsoft make a tablet version of Office for the iPad first. Probably the same reason hardly anyone makes tablet optimized versions of their apps for Android. Tm Cook said there were 500,000 tablet optimized apps for iPad vs 1,000 for Android:
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2014/02/07/tim-cook-trashes-crappy-android-tablet-experience-in-latest-interview/
You can see by the comments that one stung a little... which suggests they should do that more often.
Microsoft also announced that Office Mobile (iPhone and Android phone) are now free.
Took out my iPhone to check the top Apps and Office Mobile was at #3. Went to Google Play and it's #36.
Guess we know which platform has users more interested with doing actual work. Seems like MS made the right choice.
Or, as pointed out above, Android already has superior options. The fact that Office Mobile is at #3 signals to me that iOS had poor alternatives. This new version of Office Mobile is far from the best option on Android.