The Wal-Martification of Microsoft

Rafe Colburn comments on Gruber’s writing about Microsoft’s declining revenue and the recent news that Apple now holds 91% of the retail market for laptops that cost more than $1,000.

Microsoft is no longer ignoring Apple’s market share gains and successful “Get a Mac” ad campaign. But the crux of these ads from Apple is that Macs are better; Microsoft’s response is a message that everyone already knows — that Windows PCs are cheaper. Their marketing and retail executives publicly espouse the opinion that, now that everyone sees Apple computers as cool, Microsoft has Apple right where they want them.

They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. Their executives are either in denial of, or do not perceive, that there has emerged a consensus — not just among nerds but among a growing number of regular just-plain users — that Windows PCs are second-rate. They still dominate in terms of unit-sale market share, yes, but not because people don’t recognize Windows as second-rate, but because they don’t care, in the same way millions of people buy metric tons of second-rate products from Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

App stores are not the future, says Google

The problem is that no-one wants to pay for web pages or web-based apps which means advertising (usually supplied by Google) ends up being the only way to make money. You can see why Google likes this option.

However, Apple is rapidly building a mobile platform of epic size (40 million strong already and accelerating) full of users that are addicted to paying for native apps 1.5 billion downloaded and counting through the easiest to use online store in the world (65,000 apps and growing) and many developers are making serious cash.

Apple’s iPhone OS has become the “Windows” of the Smartphone world in terms of app marketshare and is now THE platform to develop for and THE shop for end-users to buy from. I don’t see this slowing down anytime soon.

- Mart

In response to Google Engineering vice president Vic Gundotra predicting that the Web would prevail as the dominant mobile application development platform.