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.
Your post is full of it, unless you're just printing satire. It doesn't matter what outsiders think. So yes, Apple is not growing at nearly the rate it has been, but what can we expect from a more than $200 billion a year company that doesn't artificially bolster its growth by buying up companies to directly add to it?
Apple's Mac sales growth to enterprise has been over 50% a year for the last three years, and shows no sign of slowing down. The iPad comprises 95% of the tablets in enterprise, and small organizations as well. The iPhone is now THE phone in business and government. Apple has been adding enterprise sales and support people at increasing rates. Apple products, including Macs are being seen as more viable as time goes on.
So I don't understand the argument otherwise, and believe we'll see more results from this as time goes on. This is a new thing from Apple, and a major shift doesn't always take place over night. It did with the iPhone and ipad, but then, there really was nothing to compete with them. Smartphones were sad, primitive devices that people everywhere were glad to divest themselves of quickly. iPads were a totally new category, that writers all over doubted would ever have a chance at anything, other than a small niche product for Apple. They were wrong, obviously.
And so those products made themselves dominant in enterprise, as well as small organizations, very quickly. But the Windows PC has been entrenched for a long time. And with IT being resistant to change, and the possible loss of jobs, and power within the corporation, it was difficult for the Mac to move in. But that has also changed. The Mac is much easier to integrate, and management tools are becoming more robust. IT has been losing its influence for several years as BYOD has changed from a trickle to an avalanche.
I am confident that the prognostications about Apple are wrong, as they have always been.
If iWork is so amazing then why would MS Office be the third most popular app? That makes no sense. If that's the case, then why are people "flocking to Office", as you say and the top apps chart would appear to confirm?
From what I've read on AI and other tech websites, iWork is indeed good and shows a lot of promise, but still had a ways to go to be able to compete with the big boys. Maybe they've made large strides in the last few months?
Because, as always, when something new comes out, such as this, from a major corporation, the first adopters come out in droves. What matters is how this does over months, and then, years. What we see in the first week, or three, matters little.
That was including the ad sponsored, and I app purchasing models. Not just the paid for version.
Mel, I was linking the likely press report you erroneously remembered as Rovio claiming it made no money selling Angry Birds on the Android platform. They never said any such thing AFAIK. You really. really should stop using them to support your argument. They are a very poor example. As you've mentioned, some of these things go back a ways and you don't always remember the details correctly.
Of course if you can find and link the press piece where Rovio complained about the lack of revenue from their Android apps I'll happily eat crow and apologize. Knowing the facts is much more important to me than refusing to acknowledge I might be wrong.
Then you admit there's nothing better. I did search Google Play and I already know Android has nothing to compete with Office. So unless you know of some obscure suite that nobody knows about, or doesn't come up under normal searches, then I'm calling you a liar.
You're simply afraid if you actually list a specific app that I (and others) are going to run out and try it to see if it really is as good,. And when we find out it isn't you'll be exposed.
I admit nothing of the sort and stand by my opinion. Your post proves to me that you're just fishing for an argument to 'win'. Calling me a liar and playing the 'are you chicken?' game proves to me that you're currently incapable of acting like an adult. I'm not here to argue with children. Grow up and start acting like an adult if you want to be treated like one. It brings me know joy to post such a thing, but sometimes these things need to be said.
Yes, the iPad is the better dev platform, and more likely to be used by serious people.
But also, strategically, if Nadella is a cloud guy and wants to take Microsoft in that direction, he may view Google as Microsoft's new biggest enemy, since Google is king of the cloud.
There's much more animosity between Google and MS than there is, or ever was, between Apple and MS.
Google is attacking some of the market segments that Apple, due to their premium-segment focus, wasn't really interested in... or, at least, was interested in upgrading users rather than downgrading their products:
Cheap everyday computing - Google CromeOS laptops vs. Windows laptops
Cheap mobile devices - Android phones/tablets vs. WP8 phones and Windows 8 tablets
Worldwide services - Gmail, Picasa, Google Maps, YouTube (some of which Google is openly denying to Microsot, like YouTube)
Search engine and everything that comes from owning dominant one - Google vs. Bing
Business targeting cloud solutions (Google Docs vs. Office 365)
Web browser domination even on Microsoft's home turf (Chrome vs. IE on Windows desktop)
Comparing to all above, Apple/MS relationship is quite benign, in fact almost like a gentlemen agreement - Apple is strong in premium segment, but isn't really interested in lesser segments (or, as I said, would gladly see people upgrading to premium, but would not enter lower levels themselves). This gives opportunity to MS to try sell to premium segment, without much worry if it flops, since in other segments they are basically unchallenged... until now.
So yeah... Google is the enemy. Also common enemy MS is sharing with Apple. I'll be surprised to see Ms releasing anything for Google in the years to come - I'd rather expect they slowly drop what they already have (OneNote, OneDrive) but they will probably keep them live, as attempt to pull more people over the fence.
But Microsoft doesn't charge for the iPad version. So that argument doesn't make sense.
I have the full Office on my iPad, and I didn't pay anything. In fact, you can't buy Office for iPad even if you want to. You buy an Office 365 subscription, which covers everything (I use if for a Mac licence, a Windows licence, and until a few days ago it covered the Office app on my Android phone, but that's free now, along with the iPhone version). For this reason it is obvious Microsoft will come with an Android tablet version, since it is selling a cross-platform subscription model (and it already has an Android phone version).
So yeah... Google is the enemy. Also common enemy MS is sharing with Apple. I'll be surprised to see Ms releasing anything for Google in the years to come - I'd rather expect they slowly drop what they already have (OneNote, OneDrive) but they will probably keep them live, as attempt to pull more people over the fence.
I wouldn't compare mail client with Office suite. Additionally... I believe existing Android mail clients already have full access to Hotmail/Outlook.com/Exchange... so by releasing mail client, MS is not really expanding Android's capabilities. With MS Office, however...
I wouldn't compare mail client with Office suite. Additionally... I believe existing Android mail clients already have full access to Hotmail/Outlook.com/Exchange... so by releasing mail client, MS is not really expanding Android's capabilities. With MS Office, however...
It does follow the same set of releases as they did for iPad though. Outlook was released for iPad a few months prior to the new Office apps and this will be the same on Android.
MS will likely release everything that make for iOS on Android too. It seems the one thing they've realised before anyone else is that software needs to be on all platforms and there doing with everything from Office and One Note to Xbox Music. Even Xbox Live is rumoured to be going cross platform onto iOS. Their cloud services with Azure are also having no loyalty to push only MS services, they've run Linux for year and last year even started offering Oracle as a DB solution.
Are you suggesting I'm a troll or agitator? I firmly agree with DED on many, including this, editorial. My point is that preaching to the choir is one thing and asking Gartner themselves why they're writing what they write does nothing to expose the truth. Perhaps Daniel is trying to get big media to bite on his articles, but I've never seen his pieces anywhere outside of the mac-centric tech sites.
Why did Microsoft port Office to Apple's iOS iPad before Android? The author himself noted the most likely reason:
"More recently, Microsoft's last chief executive Steve Ballmer was rumored to have postponed the deployment of native iPad Office apps that were ostensibly ready to release back in 2012,"
It's well known that both Gartner and IDC strain to make Microsoft look as good as possible. Microsoft is a major client of theirs. If you go to Gartner's site, and I imaging
E the same is for IDC, they say that their goal is to make their clients look as good as possible. Not in those exact words, but you can easily get the point.
It's one reason why both have worked very hard to minimize the drop in Windows sales over the last three years. Both keep overestimating those sales as long as they can. They both underestimate Mac sales, even after Apple releases the numbers.
I don't trust their estimates because we know that Samsung, for example had stopped reporting shipments of their smartphones and tablets after the first quarter of 2011, when Lenovo caught them at giving out tablet shipment numbers that didn't meet reality, when they had claImed to have shipped 1.5 million to N America the last quarter of 2010, but Lenovo accused them of hiding the fact that they only sold 20,000 during that same period. Samsung refused to respond to financial analysts questions about that, and it wasn't the last time.
But nevertheless, Gartner, IDC and others quote these kinds of numbers for Samsung shipments which can't be verified, even though during the trial here in early 2013, Samsung,s shipment numbers as estimated by these companies was again shown to be far off the mark, when both Apple and Samsung had to show actual sales numbers of the products under dispute. Of the estimated 1 million Samsung tablets supposedly shipped here of models under dispute, Samsung had only sold 38,000 one quarter. Of their smartphones, they on,y sold between one third and one half the number.
And yet, none of the companies doing the estimating looked at these numbers and said that they were going to revise Samsung,s sales numbers downward. The same numbers remained on their books, and in the public record. What a load of crap!
Tim Cook has to be politic about this, he can't have public disputes with these companies. If he did, you and others, would call him names about it, even though the complaints would be legitimate.
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.
Brilliant reportage, right?
Yet, whenever we see usage numbers for Samsung, Amazon, and others, they're all well down in the single digits. Doesn't match those inflates ship estimates, which writers then conflate as sales estimates.
Thank you for siting that extremely telling revelation: the 1,000,000 to 38,000 correction. Ever since I saw that reported, I put no credence whatsoever in any device estimates from anyone. I would say it's amazing how little the media made of it, but I suppose it's in their interests to cover it up; too much money changing hands and a good story-'Apple is doomed'-always trumps the truth.
Yes, it was. Rovio made a big point about it back then. Android users are very resistant to paying for apps. I don't remember how much Angry Birds cost me, as it was some time ago. I have several versions of the game. It's just a small amount though. But the ad supported version on Android has done well.
It's possible that now they've gone to the in app purchasing model, as that's proving very successful on both platforms.
I should be grateful that Apple is raking it in on IAPs, but I generally hate them. It's fine if the app is free with an option to purchase the full app for one price. What I can't stand is when there are multiple purchases-it feels like the developer is milking the customer for all it's worth. Just give me the option to get all the good stuff in one fell swoop and be done with it.
Comments
Your post is full of it, unless you're just printing satire. It doesn't matter what outsiders think. So yes, Apple is not growing at nearly the rate it has been, but what can we expect from a more than $200 billion a year company that doesn't artificially bolster its growth by buying up companies to directly add to it?
Apple's Mac sales growth to enterprise has been over 50% a year for the last three years, and shows no sign of slowing down. The iPad comprises 95% of the tablets in enterprise, and small organizations as well. The iPhone is now THE phone in business and government. Apple has been adding enterprise sales and support people at increasing rates. Apple products, including Macs are being seen as more viable as time goes on.
So I don't understand the argument otherwise, and believe we'll see more results from this as time goes on. This is a new thing from Apple, and a major shift doesn't always take place over night. It did with the iPhone and ipad, but then, there really was nothing to compete with them. Smartphones were sad, primitive devices that people everywhere were glad to divest themselves of quickly. iPads were a totally new category, that writers all over doubted would ever have a chance at anything, other than a small niche product for Apple. They were wrong, obviously.
And so those products made themselves dominant in enterprise, as well as small organizations, very quickly. But the Windows PC has been entrenched for a long time. And with IT being resistant to change, and the possible loss of jobs, and power within the corporation, it was difficult for the Mac to move in. But that has also changed. The Mac is much easier to integrate, and management tools are becoming more robust. IT has been losing its influence for several years as BYOD has changed from a trickle to an avalanche.
I am confident that the prognostications about Apple are wrong, as they have always been.
Because, as always, when something new comes out, such as this, from a major corporation, the first adopters come out in droves. What matters is how this does over months, and then, years. What we see in the first week, or three, matters little.
An interesting article:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/first-look-office-ipad-mixed-bag-good-first-step-239277
Mel, I was linking the likely press report you erroneously remembered as Rovio claiming it made no money selling Angry Birds on the Android platform. They never said any such thing AFAIK. You really. really should stop using them to support your argument. They are a very poor example. As you've mentioned, some of these things go back a ways and you don't always remember the details correctly.
Of course if you can find and link the press piece where Rovio complained about the lack of revenue from their Android apps I'll happily eat crow and apologize. Knowing the facts is much more important to me than refusing to acknowledge I might be wrong.
Then you admit there's nothing better. I did search Google Play and I already know Android has nothing to compete with Office. So unless you know of some obscure suite that nobody knows about, or doesn't come up under normal searches, then I'm calling you a liar.
You're simply afraid if you actually list a specific app that I (and others) are going to run out and try it to see if it really is as good,. And when we find out it isn't you'll be exposed.
I admit nothing of the sort and stand by my opinion. Your post proves to me that you're just fishing for an argument to 'win'. Calling me a liar and playing the 'are you chicken?' game proves to me that you're currently incapable of acting like an adult. I'm not here to argue with children. Grow up and start acting like an adult if you want to be treated like one. It brings me know joy to post such a thing, but sometimes these things need to be said.
There's much more animosity between Google and MS than there is, or ever was, between Apple and MS.
Google is attacking some of the market segments that Apple, due to their premium-segment focus, wasn't really interested in... or, at least, was interested in upgrading users rather than downgrading their products:
Comparing to all above, Apple/MS relationship is quite benign, in fact almost like a gentlemen agreement - Apple is strong in premium segment, but isn't really interested in lesser segments (or, as I said, would gladly see people upgrading to premium, but would not enter lower levels themselves). This gives opportunity to MS to try sell to premium segment, without much worry if it flops, since in other segments they are basically unchallenged... until now.
So yeah... Google is the enemy. Also common enemy MS is sharing with Apple. I'll be surprised to see Ms releasing anything for Google in the years to come - I'd rather expect they slowly drop what they already have (OneNote, OneDrive) but they will probably keep them live, as attempt to pull more people over the fence.
""kid's toys" or video players" - Hmm.. I'm using my ipad the same way. must be missing something.
Why did Microsoft port Office to Apple's iOS iPad before Android?
Simple, MS was working on iOS porting before Android. And of course, it would be released before Android.
But Microsoft doesn't charge for the iPad version. So that argument doesn't make sense.
I have the full Office on my iPad, and I didn't pay anything. In fact, you can't buy Office for iPad even if you want to. You buy an Office 365 subscription, which covers everything (I use if for a Mac licence, a Windows licence, and until a few days ago it covered the Office app on my Android phone, but that's free now, along with the iPhone version). For this reason it is obvious Microsoft will come with an Android tablet version, since it is selling a cross-platform subscription model (and it already has an Android phone version).
Except that Microsoft announced another Android app today.
http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/31/the-evolution-of-email/
Wow! That's telling him.
We can't wait until you post your wisdom on this or any other site.
I am sure your arguments will be just as cogent.
Eloquent, smart, precise and downright fun to read.
Not to mention you are freaking a hot dude!
Cheers
I wouldn't compare mail client with Office suite. Additionally... I believe existing Android mail clients already have full access to Hotmail/Outlook.com/Exchange... so by releasing mail client, MS is not really expanding Android's capabilities. With MS Office, however...
I wouldn't compare mail client with Office suite. Additionally... I believe existing Android mail clients already have full access to Hotmail/Outlook.com/Exchange... so by releasing mail client, MS is not really expanding Android's capabilities. With MS Office, however...
It does follow the same set of releases as they did for iPad though. Outlook was released for iPad a few months prior to the new Office apps and this will be the same on Android.
MS will likely release everything that make for iOS on Android too. It seems the one thing they've realised before anyone else is that software needs to be on all platforms and there doing with everything from Office and One Note to Xbox Music. Even Xbox Live is rumoured to be going cross platform onto iOS. Their cloud services with Azure are also having no loyalty to push only MS services, they've run Linux for year and last year even started offering Oracle as a DB solution.
Are you suggesting I'm a troll or agitator? I firmly agree with DED on many, including this, editorial. My point is that preaching to the choir is one thing and asking Gartner themselves why they're writing what they write does nothing to expose the truth. Perhaps Daniel is trying to get big media to bite on his articles, but I've never seen his pieces anywhere outside of the mac-centric tech sites.
Why did Microsoft port Office to Apple's iOS iPad before Android? The author himself noted the most likely reason:
"More recently, Microsoft's last chief executive Steve Ballmer was rumored to have postponed the deployment of native iPad Office apps that were ostensibly ready to release back in 2012,"
That's not a reason. Read the article.
LOL. That quote came from the article. Apparently you were the one not reading it.
It's well known that both Gartner and IDC strain to make Microsoft look as good as possible. Microsoft is a major client of theirs. If you go to Gartner's site, and I imaging
E the same is for IDC, they say that their goal is to make their clients look as good as possible. Not in those exact words, but you can easily get the point.
It's one reason why both have worked very hard to minimize the drop in Windows sales over the last three years. Both keep overestimating those sales as long as they can. They both underestimate Mac sales, even after Apple releases the numbers.
I don't trust their estimates because we know that Samsung, for example had stopped reporting shipments of their smartphones and tablets after the first quarter of 2011, when Lenovo caught them at giving out tablet shipment numbers that didn't meet reality, when they had claImed to have shipped 1.5 million to N America the last quarter of 2010, but Lenovo accused them of hiding the fact that they only sold 20,000 during that same period. Samsung refused to respond to financial analysts questions about that, and it wasn't the last time.
But nevertheless, Gartner, IDC and others quote these kinds of numbers for Samsung shipments which can't be verified, even though during the trial here in early 2013, Samsung,s shipment numbers as estimated by these companies was again shown to be far off the mark, when both Apple and Samsung had to show actual sales numbers of the products under dispute. Of the estimated 1 million Samsung tablets supposedly shipped here of models under dispute, Samsung had only sold 38,000 one quarter. Of their smartphones, they on,y sold between one third and one half the number.
And yet, none of the companies doing the estimating looked at these numbers and said that they were going to revise Samsung,s sales numbers downward. The same numbers remained on their books, and in the public record. What a load of crap!
Tim Cook has to be politic about this, he can't have public disputes with these companies. If he did, you and others, would call him names about it, even though the complaints would be legitimate.
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.
Brilliant reportage, right?
Yet, whenever we see usage numbers for Samsung, Amazon, and others, they're all well down in the single digits. Doesn't match those inflates ship estimates, which writers then conflate as sales estimates.
Thank you for siting that extremely telling revelation: the 1,000,000 to 38,000 correction. Ever since I saw that reported, I put no credence whatsoever in any device estimates from anyone. I would say it's amazing how little the media made of it, but I suppose it's in their interests to cover it up; too much money changing hands and a good story-'Apple is doomed'-always trumps the truth.
Yes, it was. Rovio made a big point about it back then. Android users are very resistant to paying for apps. I don't remember how much Angry Birds cost me, as it was some time ago. I have several versions of the game. It's just a small amount though. But the ad supported version on Android has done well.
It's possible that now they've gone to the in app purchasing model, as that's proving very successful on both platforms.
I should be grateful that Apple is raking it in on IAPs, but I generally hate them. It's fine if the app is free with an option to purchase the full app for one price. What I can't stand is when there are multiple purchases-it feels like the developer is milking the customer for all it's worth. Just give me the option to get all the good stuff in one fell swoop and be done with it.