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by pbsteve70
6162 days ago
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Funny how this devolves into Apple v. Mac. Apple has gained share but I don't believe Apple has much to do with MS' decline. The real cause is the internet... it has slowly busting MS' monopoly power. It might have been inevitable but I think MS helped cause it. Way back in the 90s, every time MS saw a profitable Windows developer, they saw an opportunity to grow their own software business. They would even advise Venture Funds not to invest in certain areas. (Guess what.. venture investors want to make money, not battle MS.) Funding and innovation for desktop development (read: Windows development) plummeted. Sure existing companies continued with their product lines and hobbyists built a huge shareware market. Meanwhile MS got fat dominating the market for software on their own platform, and with the increased PC sales for the ultimate killer app--the internet. They looked brilliant. BUT... innovation didn't die. It moved to the web. And today, while most computers still run Windows, the dominant platform is NOT windows, it's the internet itself. Cloud computing has some real advantages but real disadvantages as well. But one of the advantages is that it was a workaround for the 80 billion pound gorilla, when every business analysis started with: Does this compete with MS? Ironically, I see hints of Apple repeating the same mistake in its iphone... a platform that really has the legs to dominate in a way the mac never has. Financially and short term they're doing everything right and making billions. And they'll grow much more, just like MS in the 90s. But their whole app store/review approach is hostile to developers. In fact they're building a market that resembles the modern Windows market--only its 99c instead of shareware. Professional developers and capital and innovation is going away. The PageMakers and Photoshops of this stage of computing are going to happen on another platform. And Apple, like MS, a huge successful company with a strong embedded culture is unlikely to see the cause and effect and change its ways.. In the iphones case it won't take 15 years. But it will take a while. The iphone's current momentum is daunting. However, when you're a platform, your most valuable long term asset is your developers. But when your platform is a runaway success it appears to be too tempting to abuse those developers for short term gain. The absurdity of the Apple case is that Apple would seemingly make more money if they loosened up on the app restrictions. MS at least made serious money putting its developers out of business... |
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I don't see the App Store process as being developer hostile, at all. Yes there are a few specific areas where it's basically a hostile environment for development. But there is a far wider range of categories where the space is wide open. And that space is wider still now that Apple is finally letting people go hog wild with live video overlays in 3.1 (augmented reality stuff). You only see the contractions, but it's more than offset by expansion... and the contractions we do see, are bound to be temporary if other phones end up having compelling things the iPhone does not because of them (and the inevitable loss of AT&T exclusivity). That's far sooner than the 15 years you give them...