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INTRODUCTION
• Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in
Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer
electronics, computer software, and personal computers.
• Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the
iPod media player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet
computer.
• Its consumer software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems,
the iTunes media browser, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and
iWork creativity and productivity suites.
• Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne
on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers.
• Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by
revenue after Samsung Electronics and the world's third-largest mobile
phone maker after Samsung and Nokia.
• Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the
United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On
September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's
most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands"
report.
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Google is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related
services and products.
These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and
software. Most of its profits are derived from AdWords.
Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D.
students at Stanford University.
Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products,
acquisitions and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine. It offers
online productivity software including email (Gmail), an office suite (Google
Drive), and social networking (Google+).
Desktop products include applications for web browsing, organizing and editing
photos, and instant messaging. The company leads the development of the
Android mobile operating system and the browser-only Chrome OS for a
netbook known as a Chromebook.
In December 2013 Alexa listed google.com as the most visited website in the
world.
Numerous Google sites in other languages figure in the top one hundred, as do
several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube and Blogger
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• Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in
Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells
computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services.
• Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating
systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. It is the
world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's
most valuable companies.
• Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975 to develop and
sell BASIC interpreters for Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer
operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft
Windows.
• In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest
acquisition to date.
• The Microsoft Office suite of applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access)
began life as Microsoft Works, an Apple Macintosh application that provided the
functions of a word processor, spreadsheet, and database all in one.
• Microsoft's popular Internet Explorer web browser was originally a rebranded
version of Spyglass Mosaic.
• Microsoft Corporation has promised that its new Windows Vista operating system
will be more secure than previous offerings such as Windows XP, however the ten
patches a month policy has not been changed.
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Question 1
Compare the business models and areas of strength
of Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Apple:
It has the basis of creating a very strong hardware base for the internet
future and thus logically they play their role in this battle by laying
emphasis on the hardware that facilitates mobile computing.
Apple has gone into the stance that applications, one of the major earners
for tablet and phone manufacturers, should be device restricted.
For example, one application should be unique to the brand of the device
and should be allowed to function in another device from another separate
brand.
They even stopped Google in its plans to allow Google applications to work
on Apple products. Thus by doing this Apple is trying to capitalize on their
loyal customer base and create a Apple weds Apple scenario.
Its business model focuses on centralized control of almost all aspects of
its hardware and software. It believes smart-phones and tablets should
have proprietary standards and be tightly controlled.
It only allows apps from its App store that have been vetted by the
company, to be loaded to its products.
Apple has a very loyal user base that has steadily grown and most likely
will stay with Apple products in the future.
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Google :
Google is the believer in the concept that in the future the devices used
to run the applications and other internet options should be a fraction
of what they are being charged now and instead the revenues
generated should be from the in-app advertisements.
Google even bought Ad Mob, an application advertisements
development company, to work on such a concept. This future, Google
and Microsoft have tried their hand at going hardware friendly but they
still do not put the same emphasis on the hardware as Apple.
Its business model has always focused on the Internet and the Web. It
began as one of many search engines. It quickly ran away from the
pack with its copyrighted Page-Rank search algorithm which returns
superior search results for Web users.
It also has developed extensive online advertising services for
businesses of all sizes. Google provides value to the user by using an
inexpensive, flexible infrastructure to speed up Web searches and
provide its users with a vast array of Web-based services and software
tools.
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Microsoft :
Microsoft has laid its bet on the operating system on which the mobile
computing devices shall run. Microsoft also has announced plans to
develop the hardware for mobile computing, something it has not done
so far, and thus has entered into the field of both Google and Apple.
By integrating the hardware and software deal Microsoft has actually
change the dynamics of the whole market. And this can be problem
some for Google and Apple as they shall have to change their own
perspective and outlook towards the level of competition that they shall
have to face in the coming years in mobile computing.
Its business model originally focused on the desktop computer running
the Windows operating system and Office desktop productivity
applications.
The company and its products are staples for businesses and consumers
looking to improve their productivity with computer-based tasks. While it
is trying to expand its presence on the Internet, it still must try to keep
customers bound to the desktop computer.
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Question 2
Why is mobile computing so important to these three firms ?
Evaluate the mobile platform offerings of each firm.
APPLE :
The mobile platform that Apple provides with its products is
“iOS” (Kevin K, 2012). This mobile platform is the closed
platform that is it applicable for apple products and only
apple apps could work on this. Some of the remarkable
features amongs them are:
There is an option over which you can reply later on the
calls which you can’t take immediately.
Integration with the facebook over which you can share
all you iPhone activities
There is a passbook app through which you can use you
iPhone as a credit card.
There is also an up-gradation of the apple maps app
which is very impressive.
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GOOGLE :
The mobile platform that Google provides is “Android”. This
mobile platform is a universal platform or you can say it’s an
open platform when compared to the mobile platform offered
by Apple. Some of the notable features of this version are:
• A simple screen swipe would provide you with search
results related to Google.
• The voice recognition tool in this version would rub offline.
• Another of the new feature is GOOGLE NOW in which the
preferences are chosen based on the data like the time
location and personal history and over this the search
results are provided.
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MICROSOFT :
Microsoft is entering this market recently by launching the
tablet named “Surface tablet”. The mobile platform that
Microsoft is offering is the Windows Phone 8 (Kevin K,
2012). This operating system will be compatible with the
laptops and the desktops.
Some of the unique features of this operating system are:
Support dual core chips
Support multiple screen resolution
Provides advanced map technology
Offers Passbook wallet.
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• The development of applications and software’s to match these expectations is a task that
all the companies in the fray to be the leader in the mobile computing market, whether it
be Apple, Google, Microsoft or any other new player, shall have to look into great detail
and precision.
• The importance of mobile applications can be justified on this basis itself that Google has
based their future growth prediction on the very same. Right now the scenario for mobile
applications is such that they have are being considered as the future bread and butter of
mobile IT firms. Mobile applications have such a great scope of growth in the future that
they can one day eclipse the sales of the hardware part of mobile computing and form a
major market themselves here players like Google and apple shall have tough competition
even from small fray players if a common platform for application usage is formed, the
very same reason why Apple is resisting Google’s repeated efforts for a common mobile
platform.
• Mobile applications are even today a big part of the on the go access market. Finish
mobile giant Nokia too has a say in the application future as it still has the lion’s share in
the applications that are used in its mobile phones, which in spite of the recent drop are a
very big number. Also applications and app stores are also being viewed as a source of
major entertainment by many users of mobile computing devices, with games like angry
birds and temple run taking the market by storm it is very evident that applications and
app stores are a thing for the future.
Question 3
What is the significance of mobile application, app stores, and
closed versus open app standards to the success or failure of
mobile computing?
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Question 4
Which company and business model do you think will
prevail in this epic struggle? Explain your answer.
Google :
The search engine giant has a lot of positives going for it rather than the negatives.
The clear positives that can make it a winner are :
1. A well-established name is something which not a lot of players can boast of but
Google is one of them, although Apple and Microsoft have chartered territories
of their own but Google can fight them out both as an equal if not better
2. The Company has entered into all the three basic markets of mobile computing
including hardware, operating system and the application stores. Their hardware
is something which a few competitors can best , however the Android operating
system has taken the market by storm and the app store which comes with it is
a mean bully in itself (Android 2012)
3. Google has also bet on of the most time relevant feature of the mobile
computing market, the App store, and this is the biggest advantage which the
Google business model gives it and makes it the prime contender for the number
one position. With hundreds of applications already online and hundreds more in
the development stage Google has started to take a sort of lead on the other
players in the race to be number one. And this may not be decisive right now
but with Google’s recent acquisition of application developers and their heavy
R&D expenditure on the same, it is just a matter of time before it will take out
companies like Apple and Microsoft. (Android 2012)
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4. Although the Google bandwagon is on its way there are certain roadblocks
that it can face that can halt its march and some of them are
5. The Google brand is big but it still lacks the appeal of an Apple product and
this many say is one of the most major difference between the two.
6. The Android system although perfected to a large extent still has a few
errors in the new versions that can hamper the growth of the operating
system and this where a competitor like Microsoft can prevail over the
Company
7. Google’s move towards a common mobile application platform can itself
backfire and could increase competition from local app players which can
affect the overall profitability from this step.
Thus it can be said that Google does have a lot of positives that can help it in
the market and if it can take care of the negatives and maybe tweak the one
platform stance, it can just pull ahead of Apple and Microsoft in this battle of
the behemoths.
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Question 5
What difference would it make to a business or to an
individual consumer if Apple, Google, or Microsoft
dominated the Internet experience? Explain your answer.
Consumers would be forced to buy only one product and use only one
service. They would create a monopoly and the positive would be they
would create a standard.
This would affect quality; prices would be as high as possible because
they would have no competition.
No competition means nobody could force a monopolist from the
outside to improve products, diversify rang or products and lower price.
Right now it is too early to tell who would dominate the internet
experience but it is good to have competition than just one market
leader.
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• Right now Apple leads Google in the number of apps available to users.
That gap is closing quickly thanks to Google’s improvements of the
Android operating system and its encouragement to app developers.
Open, non-proprietary systems historically have beat closed,
proprietary systems because developers and users have a wider range
of choices.
• Business managers must try to forecast which platform will provide the
right choices for employees. Consumers must choose which platform
will best fulfil their personal needs for the next two to three years.
• Switching costs play into both scenarios, not just in terms of phone
purchases but the price of apps. Once a user purchases and adjusts to
using a certain platform it’s difficult and expensive to switch to a whole
different system.
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• Now the Internet has already become a multibillion dollar
industry with Apple, Google and Microsoft being its major
player.
• By this time, the direction of Internet’s further development
has also already been set.
• The internet was showing signs of becoming the melting pot
of media and entertainment, business and workforce
collaboration, telecommunication, knowledge and other
market.
• Apple, Google and Microsoft were the first most successful in
taking action to integrate massive service in their product
worlds.
• The various IT firms were for sale or willing to cooperate
under more favorable conditions. By this opportunities, Apple,
Google and Microsoft set out to adjust positioning and
capabilities in preparation of the inevitable recovery of the
Internet.
CONCLUSION
