'What really made Steve Jobs so angry at Google?'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 10th Sep 2012 14:51 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
Apple Written by Scott Cleland: "With so many fanboys spinning Silicon Valley history, it's sometimes easy to forget about the real chain of events that led to the ongoing Apple-Google thermonuclear war, how the romance turned to hate. This timeline presents an interesting case about why, despite patents and prior art, Steve Jobs had plenty of personal reasons to despise Schmidt, Page, and Brin." Cleland has a very, very good point; quite coherent and well-reasoned... That is, if you haven't got a single shred of historical sense and completely and utterly ignore the 30-odd years of mobile computing development that preceded our current crop of smartphones. It's hard not to be reminded of how certain groups of people dismiss millions of years of fossil records because this record inconveniences their argument. In any case, a comment on the article answered the question properly: "Jobs was a businessman. He was angry he was losing money. Simple."
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RE[2]: Losing money?
by jared_wilkes on Tue 11th Sep 2012 01:37 UTC in reply to "RE: Losing money? "
jared_wilkes
Member since:
2011-04-25

I thought I'd revisit your original post that you think is so brilliant and well-supported by evidence...

Apple's revenue almost entirely come from iOS-related projects (iPhone, iPad, App store sales, etc)


Demonstrably false. Apple derives 65% of its revenue from iOS; Microsoft derives 90% of its revenue from Windows and Office, Google makes 95% of its revenues from advertising.

so they need to keep that revenue up else they'll see a significant drop in income.


This is meaningless at it applies to everyone. (Less so for Apple, as they have been able to grow profits faster than revenue... particularly in comparison to the competition.)

Thus they need to monopolise the market and thus they need to prevent their biggest competition from, well, competing.


Again, evidence is to the contrary. Your conclusion is baseless. And it more strongly applies to Google and Microsoft.

Furthermore, Apples shares are exceptionally high. They're very much in their own economic bubble; and like all financial bubbles in the technology sector, Apple knows that if said bubble would burst, their business could potentially crash quite significantly. However as Apple have grown so exponentially, they'll quickly end up in a situation where there isn't any physical room for more growth - and the very best scenario there is they plateau (but as past history has shown us - that rarely happens when bubble burst).


All of this is unsupported, mostly nonsense, and you claim you do not believe this will happen nor do you base any claims on it... why it has significance for you, I have no idea.

So Apple have to artificially sustain their shares by creating the illusion that they're dominating the market to keep investors from selling shares (as once that happens, you could end up with a domino effect where yet more shareholders sell stock before the price drops further).


Where is any evidence for this? Remember, the only fact you've really claimed so far is that Apple is somehow more dependent on iOS than Google or Microsoft are their core revenue stream. A "fact" that has been clearly refuted a while ago....

Then you need to ensure that your products also sell - and when your product is easily copied (ignoring, for the moment, the argument of whether Apple did "invent" multi-touch et al), the easiest way to sell your product is to prevent others from selling theirs.


Again, all of this is your own imagining based on the idea that Apple is more dependent on iOS than its competition is its core revenue source (proven false) and the "possibility" that the stock is going to crash (something that is not supported and which you yourself do not believe will occur.)

Thus Apple go after their biggest rivals with sales bans and loud exclamations that they basically own the mobile paradigm and how everyone else should either change their designs (read: reinvent themselves with less attractive / usable designs) to booster their own sales and booster their public image to potential and current investors alike.


You notice how you say "thus" and "so" a lot? Those words don't make an argument for you.

Microsoft, however, don't need to artificially inflate their business.


Again, when did you provide any evidence that Apple "has to artificially inflate their business?" This is your imagination.

Redmond know that if your OS is available to OEMs then all you need to do is get that OS to reach critical mass before users select those types of handsets over rivals (much like how Android has taken off as a household name).


Microsoft KNOWS this even though their market share has declined from 4% to 2% and continues to decline? Really? Microsoft is happy with their current position and in better health than Apple. Really? Do you think others agree with you? Do you think you have enough time in the world to demonstrate this?

So Microsoft licence their patents at exactly the same price as their OS licences to encourage OEMs to chose Windows Phone over Android. It's a bit more of a long term game, but MS have the backing of the desktop Windows brand. With Win8 on the horizon, I'm guessing their betting the success of that (which seems far from certain at the moment) will booster their smart phone sales too.


You and Microsoft can go ahead and make that bet; Apple will go on kicking their ass, running the house.

tl;dr version: Microsoft licence because they're trying to sell their OS to OEMs, Apple seek sales bans because they can't afford to lose their primary sales revenue.


Apple is less dependent on their primary sales revenue than Microsoft is. Even if they were so, Apple's iOS business is far, far healthier than Microsoft's Windows/Office business. You haven't argued well and you certainly haven't provided any evidence of anything.

Edited 2012-09-11 01:40 UTC

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