Mea Vita: Carpe Diem

The enlightening part of this documentary is that it starts with Microsoft employees talking about what a paradigm shift it was for Microsoft to embrace open source software development. It highlights the differences in leadership between Gates/Ballmer and Satya Nadella who took over as CEO in 2014. Nadella saw the importance and power of goodwill with open source while transitioning the company to providing cloud services. That’s a huge culture shift for a behemoth company like Microsoft which is one of the largest companies in the world. 

It’s interesting to see how a company, like Google, has shifted away from, “Don't be evil,” while Microsoft has become more open and supportive of the developer community. 

At Microsoft, perfection is achieved when there's nothing more to add; while Apple believes that perfection is achieved when there's nothing more to take away.

Two completely different philosophies held by two highly respected and industry dominating competitors. Microsoft is a marketing company (you don't get 90+% of the desktop market without marketing your way there) while Apple is a product company (build great products and profit will ensue).

It's not having a great idea that will make a great company; rather it's having great execution.

SDNN asked me to review the new Microsoft Store that opened last week in San Diego. It's a decent store and it was crowded. I included some video and photos with the article.

I came across this forecast that Apple Could Surpass Microsoft in 2010 which I blogged about more than three years ago.

Apple may not have surpassed Microsoft in revenue, but they certainly surpassed them in market capitalization.

In one word, "Yes!".

A 30% revenue sharing deal is great. Yesterday, Steve Ballmer implied that it was too much at Mix 2008 in Las Vegas.

Today, if you develop a mobile application which you want delivered over-the-air (OTA) to a mobile handset your only choice is premium SMS (PSMS). For example, if you buy a game or a ring tone the charge will show up on your cell phone bill.

Here's the part no one knows unless you've dealt with wireless carriers and PSMS: the wireless carrier and the SMS aggrogator, which is the middleman between you and the wireless carrier, will keep 50%-60% of the revenue collected.

Yes, that's right - the developer collects less than half of the revenue. Not to mention the fact that the company selling their apps and media must pay for the short code (five or six digit phone number) which typically runs about $15K-$30K/year ($500 or $1000/month to lease the short code, which is akin to buying a domain name, then another $1000/month to host the short code with an SMS aggregator plus the developer has to pay for each text message they send, too.).

The current OTA solutions are not cheap which makes Apple's 30% solution extremely appealing to mobile handset developers.

How come the Apple Software Update on Windows XP doesn't say:
Downloading (12.70000000000001 MB / 22.399999999999912 MB)?

[ digg this ]

I was amazed to see these revenue projections comparing Apple to Microsoft.



Details here.

Update
4 June 2010: Apple may not have surpassed Microsoft in revenue, but they certainly surpassed them in market capitalization.

I've read some pretty iPod defensive articles on the Zune and I've read some pro Zune articles.

It's easy to point your finger at the Zune and laugh - too easy since it's such a big target. Of course, we all laughed at Windows 1.0 in 1985, 18 months after the first Mac and two years after the Lisa (Lisa was the first commercial computer with a GUI). But, who was laughing when Windows 95 shipped?

Obviously, the key for Apple is to make today's iPod obsolete with tomorrow's iPod and to keep putting distance between the iPod and Zune while learning from the Zune's successes and failures.

Design
That's the single word that best describes Apple. Not just industrial design, but UI design, software architecture design, design through layers of abstraction. The product of this is elegance and simplicity.

Marketing
It's about the marketing. Microsoft is, first and foremost, a marketing company. Although they lose when it comes to innovation, they clearly win when it comes to marketing and, obviously, money. Simply put, you cannot gain 90+% of the desktop market share without being the marketing king.

"Apple should have licensed the Mac's operating system."

No, not really.
Direct comparison of the two companies' business models is - pardon the pun - like comparing apples to oranges. Seriously, Apple is a hardware company, like Dell or HP, and Microsoft is a software company. Just to be clear, hardware companies make their money selling hardware and vice versa. Not to mention, changing business models of this magnitude is not simple. (IBM, who successfully did this in the mid 1990s after a near death experience, is the rare exception.)

Apple appears to be the personal computer company that's been around the longest. Although a big chunk of Apple's revenue comes from the iPod how many other multi-billion dollar computer companies, after 30 years, are still selling what they sold on day one?

As an Apple shareholder, I much prefer comparing Apple, with its $78B market cap, to Dell, with it's $61B market cap.

(Yes, I know Apple did license its OS in the mid 1990s.)