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Well it seems that everyone and their dog has had their say about the Microsoft investment in Apple. But that isn't true, because I haven't and I wanna go! I'm sure most of us have ascertained that Apple didn't need that money, even though most newspapers and news programs insisted that Apple did (in the UK anyhow). Apple has something in the order of $1.3 billion cash in the bank, $150 million is a drop in the ocean for both Apple and Microsoft and they both know it. Its a simple public relations exercise. Apple gets continuing development of Office which is good for their business markets as well as royalties from Microsoft. The big M gets more opportunity to push Internet Explorer on the Mac platform and a big saving on their legal bill. Simple enough. So what does MS + Apple = ? It equals a weird relationship between companies who compete in some aspects an cooperate in others. But, while Jobs claimed that MS + Apple = 100% of desktop market, that isn't entirely true. OS/2 Warp, Linux, AmigaOS, BeOS and others all have their shares. Admittedly none are as big as MacOS (60 million) or Windows (100 million - 60 million for Win95) but Linux has between 5 and 9 million users, OS/2 Warp is in the double figure millions, AmigaOS and BeOS probably account for at least a million each as well. So an Apple - Microsoft axis would be dire, but by no means the end. To complicate matters we have to remember that Apple is also a hardware company - so you could say that Apple has a much larger market share than Microsoft, for hardware! Apple's hardware business does create conflicts of interest inside and out of the company which already do cause problems. But Microsoft isn't concerned with those - as long it continues to rake money in from the cash cow that Office for the Mac is then it will be a good business decision to support the Mac platform. But when it stops being profitable Apple better watch their back, because that is when Bill gets dangerous. Look at their Internet strategy. They haven't made a cent from it yet but that is undoubtedly where they are currently at their most threatening. You have been warned. |
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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him] |
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