Newsweek: How Apple Turned into Microsoft

One Bad Apple

Apple is looking like what Microsoft was 10 years ago—a Bigfoot that squeezes smaller competitors.
Published Sep 6, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Sep 15, 2008

A former lieutenant of Steve Jobs's once told me something surprising about his ex-boss. "Steve is a monopolist at heart," he said. "He's just like Bill Gates. He just hasn't been as successful." Well, Jobs is getting there. This summer, Apple's market capitalization surged past Google's, making it the financial king of Silicon Valley. True, Apple still holds only 11 percent of the U.S. consumer PC market, according to researcher NPD, but its influence is far greater than that market share suggests. The iconic iPod dominates its market, and the iTunes music store has sold more than 5 billion songs, making it the No. 1 music retailer in America, ahead of Wal-Mart, according to IDC. Apple's iPhone is the No. 3 smart phone in the United States, according to NPD.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/157545/page/1

I was eating an Apple when I saw this. A big juicy Macintosh apple too. By the time I finished reading the article, I was finished with the Apple too.

Dovella said:

boys do not worry,
with the arrival of Windows 7 + a new Microsoft return , to annihilate Apple

*sniff sniff*  - Do I smell sarcasm?

Sseriously, being a monopoly (or monopolist) alone isn't a recipe for disaster. It's how other people view you. If you're considered a benevolent monopoly (generally), no one will care if you have the bulk of a market (or markets). A good spin campaign will highlight the benefits of a one company system, and most people will believe you. It's when you have a monopoly and a negative image when you need to worry.

Dovella said:

boys do not worry,
with the arrival of Windows 7 + a new Microsoft return , to annihilate Apple

But Microsoft doesn't make PCs. If Apple has 11% of the computer market share that not something that should fully be thrown into Microsoft's face. It's up to the Dells, IBM, etc. to step up. It's up to the NVidias too to make better Vista drivers even though they had 3+ years before launch and a few years after launch to do so.

Jason I said:

Dovella said:

*snip*

*sniff sniff*  - Do I smell sarcasm?

Sseriously, being a monopoly (or monopolist) alone isn't a recipe for disaster. It's how other people view you. If you're considered a benevolent monopoly (generally), no one will care if you have the bulk of a market (or markets). A good spin campaign will highlight the benefits of a one company system, and most people will believe you. It's when you have a monopoly and a negative image when you need to worry.

Emulating Microsoft isn't a bad business strategy. Hey, it's been pretty successful and made some people allot of money and it hasn't killed anyone and so the harm is?

Harlequin said:

Dovella said:

*snip*

But Microsoft doesn't make PCs. If Apple has 11% of the computer market share that not something that should fully be thrown into Microsoft's face. It's up to the Dells, IBM, etc. to step up. It's up to the NVidias too to make better Vista drivers even though they had 3+ years before launch and a few years after launch to do so.

Er not!!!
Apple have 11% in USA
in the World is 6-7%

+99.9.9.9% of Apple user  have parallels bootcamp wmware etc for use Windows.

Ion Todirel said:

Dovella said:

*snip*

orly where did you get that stats from? I'm more in that 99.(9) of Apple users hate Windows or doesn't want to use anything else than Mac OS-X

the stats  have been provided by an analyst who only know me and I can not name

Dovella said:

Ion Todirel said:

*snip*

the stats  have been provided by an analyst who only know me and I can not name

you're joking right? This is your argument?

Dovella said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

Er not!!!
Apple have 11% in USA
in the World is 6-7%

+99.9.9.9% of Apple user  have parallels bootcamp wmware etc for use Windows.

The scary part is that *if* Apple ever gets any real martketshare you can kiss freedom of choice goodbye.  At least with MS you get to choose from a large variety of hardware manufacturers that are all in direct competition with each other. 

Now imagine Apple being as successful as MS (~shiver~).  Ugh, that would be a bad day for those that don't like to have one and only one overpriced, baubalized hardware platform rammed down our throats.  Kiss computer diversity and competition goodbye.

Not everyone drinks deep from the Apple Kool-Aid Well, although apparently it is a strong mixture because those that drank from the Well fall hard into Accepting Jobs as their Savior.  Pretty sad really.

It's weird to see anti-monopolist talk on a Microsoft forum.  You guys need a reality check in a bad way.

JChung2006 said:

It's weird to see anti-monopolist talk on a Microsoft forum.  You guys need a reality check in a bad way.

JChung2006 said:

It's weird to see anti-monopolist talk on a Microsoft forum.  You guys need a reality check in a bad way.

MS, Apple, and Google are all evil monopolies. The only difference is that MS is a bigger target and tends to lose many lawsuits.

JChung2006 said:

It's weird to see anti-monopolist talk on a Microsoft forum.  You guys need a reality check in a bad way.

I was pointing out what the difference would be if Apple had MS' success (if the roles were reversed).  We would be locked into one hardware + OS platform, let alone one OS platform.  Have you ever compared the amount of hardware choices/form factors that you can run Windows on with what you can run OS X on?  There are so many specialized hardware that Windows runs on compared to what OS X runs on.  And this is purely because Apple doesn't let anyone else run their precious OS on any non-Apple hardware.  There is no technical reason why it can't, it is just that Apple tried it before and was incapable of competing with the other hardware vendors, hence it stopped any other vendors from legally selling hardware that runs Apple's OS.  My point is that if Apple was actually successful, kiss any choices goodbye.

If you think such a scenario won't be dramatically worse than MS' "monopoly" then you are blindfolded and you need to pull your head out and take a breath from all your Apple Kool-Aid gulping.

Dovella said:

Ion Todirel said:

*snip*

the stats  have been provided by an analyst who only know me and I can not name

SYNTAX ERROR

Maybe you should tell your analyst that more than one decimal point is invalid...