The screen grab, above, takes me back to the I love my Mac post, written nearly a month ago. My Mac has had 49 days of uptime (and is still going!), running as a Mac, a Windows XP box, and a Ubuntu 64-bit box, with all the apps shoehorned into what I now consider a small 2GB chunk of memory (I should really upgrade my RAM, but that would require a shutdown...). Needless to say, my PCs have experienced a few more reboots in the same period of time. I know, I know, a reboot is not that big a deal, and I administer a couple of Linux servers with even longer uptimes, but having so few reboots serves to strengthen that feeling of trust you can put into your OS. Windows just doesn't give me the same level of 'no problem, I can handle anything you can throw at me' confidence.
That cha-ching sound you hear... is Apple's killer app
Apple customers have downloaded one billion apps since the App Store opened nine months ago! Obviously, that sets some sort of record (or, more likely, records), and has woken some of Apple's competitors out of their mobile device slumber. No matter. Apple has the clear lead here, in terms of software that people want to use, a development environment that developers can put to good use, and hardware that's both consistent enough between devices and powerful enough to run some amazing apps. I was playing X-Plane on my iPhone the other day - and was blown away! Like manned rocket launches, Apple achieving the 2B app milestone won't be nearly as exciting and won't get as much press, but I still expect it to happen about six months from now.
Microsoft and Apple both released their quarterly results this week, and looking closely at the numbers we can see both the positive and negative influence of netbook computers on Microsoft's bottom line. The good news is that Microsoft's revenue declined by only 6% in the quater. The bad news? The overall PC market, excluding netbooks, dropped by 15% in the same time period. The sudden, and explosive, emergence of netbooks gave Microsoft a welcome infusion of cash from the sale of its 2001-era XP operating system to netbook vendors.
What about Windows' netbook longer-term prospects? When Windows 7 is released (likely this fall according to the tea leaves), Microsoft will find itself between a rock and a hard place with the netbook version of their OS. Clearly, they can't sell the flagship Windows 7 OS at the fire-sale price of its XP grandparent, and they can't sell it at full price either, because then the OS becomes worth more than the rest of the netbook computer - which does not make for a good computing or marketing experience. Microsoft's solution will have to be to sell the artificially-crippled 'Starter' or 'Netbook' or 'Cheapy' version, and try to compete with the 'don't even think of taking any functionality out or we'll fork the code' Linux-powered 'Ultimate Edition'. Sadly, many people will buy the Windows netbook because it's the only thing they're familiar with. I feel sad for those who do end up with the cripple-ware edition, but not sad for Microsoft's predicament - they're squeezing themselves further into the low-price corner they painted themselves into.
Apple doesn't have the same problem, because Apple is primarily a hardware company. Making a reasonable amount of profit on the computer and the OS that you make, is much simpler than trying to make a profit on just the computer or just the OS. When your computer, with your OS is selling for $2199, not $379, you get to keep a much bigger chunk of that customer's money.
And, finally, those new clothes. Take a close look at both Microsoft's and Apple's balance sheets. Don't you find it a little bit surprising that Apple, a company that only 'owns' about 3% of the worldwide computer market share, generated more than half the revenue of the company that 'owns' 95% of the computer market? It's even more surprising when you consider that making hardware usually involves more investment and costs than making software - CDs should be a whole lot cheaper to produce than Macbooks and iPods. Couple Microsoft's lack of converting software sales to profits with its desire to keep pushing the devaluation of Windows computers.
Yikes! Nice outfit you got there!
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