5 ms·

> Apple makes almost twice as much money as Microsoft does, but their valuations are similar. Thus the "market" believes that Microsoft's revenue is going to gr

> Apple makes almost twice as much money as Microsoft does, but their valuations are similar. Thus the "market" believes that Microsoft's revenue is going to grow much faster than Apple's will. The market for tablets is pretty much saturated, and the market for smartphones is no longer expanding at a breakneck rate. Laptops/desktops are not a growth segment, so Apple doesn't have huge potential for growth anymore unless they can find a new and very profitable product segment. Apple isn't even really trying in any kind of serious way in the enterprise market, and their cloud efforts are only focused on supporting iOS for the most part. So where Microsoft (and Amazon) is poised for strong growth, Apple isn't even on the playing field. I think back when the iPad 1 and 2 was gaining traction and getting businesses excited about tablets, is when Apple should've made a big push into enterprise. I think a lot of orgs (particularly gov't and hospitals) would've changed to being Mac shops if Apple offered the server, productivity, and desktop/device admin tools enterprise needs. But they largely ignored that opportunity and now the window is all but closed. I know Apple's philosophy was to have a laser focus on what they do well, which was consumer hardware and software. But I think they had/have more than enough money to be a strong player in the enterprise market. What could have been.

pmart123 8y ago
I guess is there a reason to believe Apple would be good at providing enterprise IT or infrastructure services, especially when its become hyper-competitive? Delivering to enterprise is usually about customizing 10-20% around edge cases versus delivering one seamless, yet rigid experience.
- GVIrish 8y ago
  When you're sitting on as much cash as Apple, they can find a way. It's just a question of whether they are willing to adapt their habits and philosophy to serve the enterprise market correctly. I think you hit on a key point, which is that enterprise customers need the ability to customize to get to that last 10-20% of use cases. Right now Amazon and Microsoft have a huge lead in the enterprise cloud, but I don't think that lead is insurmountable. Apple would just have to find a unique angle they could exploit. Maybe come up with much cheaper alternatives to some of the Office 365 products and bundle it with open source SaaS/PaaS offerings.
  - pmart123 8y ago
    I think you have a point, but I would probably point to Adobe as what Apple should have done in the cloud, or even something like Airtable. I think Excel is such a lock in for some industries and Google is already providing a free alternative in google docs. Apple probably had an opportunity in providing services for its designer/artistic focused customers as a starting point.
marcinzm 8y ago
>But I think they had/have more than enough money to be a strong player in the enterprise market. I've dealt with their business division(s) recently and it was nothing but headache after headache. Things didn't work (and no one knew why), opaque convoluted processes, weeks of waiting, 503 errors when trying to pay, etc.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
Apple has 1 billion users that are relatively affluent, relatively fanatical and fairly locked in. I'm sure there are a bunch of good ways to provide value to these people (and thus extract money) other than just the phone upgrade treadmill. I don't know what they are, but I'm confident there are a few good ideas among the tens of thousands of Apple employees.
- jenkstom 8y ago
  "Think differently"
- ascii_only 8y ago
  It is not good enough for company size of apple to just extract money. Apple needs to grow. Number of units sold is not rising fast enough or not rising at all. You can rise prices for 25% in one year or make consumers pay more but not indefinitely.
- shmed 8y ago
  Really curious about where you got the data that Apple has 1 billion active user. I know they sold over a billion iphone overtime, but that's certainly not 1 billion different customers buying iphones. Also, I would assume a pretty big intersection of Mac or iPad users also own an iphone, so that wouldn't count as many customers either.
diminoten 8y ago
Sorry, not really on topic, but the market for tablets is really saturated? I can hardly find one that meets my goals, and the one I do like is Huawei (the M5 looks cool), which has a history of backdooring their products for Chinese spying purposes.
techbio 8y ago
> what they do well, which was consumer hardware and software Hardware, yes, software, not a lot lately, eg: https://medium.com/stealthmode-blog/apple-s-dirty-little-secret-its-software-sucks-8d246543d73c https://medium.com/stealthmode-blog/apple-s-dirty-little-sec... If they are going to build business in services they have to make a renewed/better case for their usability.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  I would say the opposite. A lot of disappointment in their hardware lately, but required in order to use their software. iPhone users prefer iOS over Android, and Mac users prefer MacOS over Windows. I doubt most care much what device it runs on.
- GVIrish 8y ago
  That's a fair point. Apple still delights a lot of their customers but there are still a lot of maddening UI/UX problems in a number of their products. And iCloud is pretty far behind Google on consumer cloud services. And really, Google is only widening the gap.
modwilliam 8y ago
The potential for growth is in raising the prices of its products. For example, the price of THE flagship iPhone has gone up by at least $100 for the past 2 releases. The MacBooks are also becoming more and more expensive
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  10% annual revenue growth is low for a tech giant.

pmart123 8y ago

I guess is there a reason to believe Apple would be good at providing enterprise IT or infrastructure services, especially when its become hyper-competitive? Delivering to enterprise is usually about customizing 10-20% around edge cases versus delivering one seamless, yet rigid experience.

GVIrish 8y ago
When you're sitting on as much cash as Apple, they can find a way. It's just a question of whether they are willing to adapt their habits and philosophy to serve the enterprise market correctly. I think you hit on a key point, which is that enterprise customers need the ability to customize to get to that last 10-20% of use cases. Right now Amazon and Microsoft have a huge lead in the enterprise cloud, but I don't think that lead is insurmountable. Apple would just have to find a unique angle they could exploit. Maybe come up with much cheaper alternatives to some of the Office 365 products and bundle it with open source SaaS/PaaS offerings.
- pmart123 8y ago
  I think you have a point, but I would probably point to Adobe as what Apple should have done in the cloud, or even something like Airtable. I think Excel is such a lock in for some industries and Google is already providing a free alternative in google docs. Apple probably had an opportunity in providing services for its designer/artistic focused customers as a starting point.

marcinzm 8y ago

>But I think they had/have more than enough money to be a strong player in the enterprise market. I've dealt with their business division(s) recently and it was nothing but headache after headache. Things didn't work (and no one knew why), opaque convoluted processes, weeks of waiting, 503 errors when trying to pay, etc.

bryanlarsen 8y ago

Apple has 1 billion users that are relatively affluent, relatively fanatical and fairly locked in. I'm sure there are a bunch of good ways to provide value to these people (and thus extract money) other than just the phone upgrade treadmill. I don't know what they are, but I'm confident there are a few good ideas among the tens of thousands of Apple employees.

jenkstom 8y ago
"Think differently"
ascii_only 8y ago
It is not good enough for company size of apple to just extract money. Apple needs to grow. Number of units sold is not rising fast enough or not rising at all. You can rise prices for 25% in one year or make consumers pay more but not indefinitely.
shmed 8y ago
Really curious about where you got the data that Apple has 1 billion active user. I know they sold over a billion iphone overtime, but that's certainly not 1 billion different customers buying iphones. Also, I would assume a pretty big intersection of Mac or iPad users also own an iphone, so that wouldn't count as many customers either.

diminoten 8y ago

Sorry, not really on topic, but the market for tablets is really saturated? I can hardly find one that meets my goals, and the one I do like is Huawei (the M5 looks cool), which has a history of backdooring their products for Chinese spying purposes.

techbio 8y ago

> what they do well, which was consumer hardware and software Hardware, yes, software, not a lot lately, eg: https://medium.com/stealthmode-blog/apple-s-dirty-little-secret-its-software-sucks-8d246543d73c https://medium.com/stealthmode-blog/apple-s-dirty-little-sec... If they are going to build business in services they have to make a renewed/better case for their usability.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
I would say the opposite. A lot of disappointment in their hardware lately, but required in order to use their software. iPhone users prefer iOS over Android, and Mac users prefer MacOS over Windows. I doubt most care much what device it runs on.
GVIrish 8y ago
That's a fair point. Apple still delights a lot of their customers but there are still a lot of maddening UI/UX problems in a number of their products. And iCloud is pretty far behind Google on consumer cloud services. And really, Google is only widening the gap.

modwilliam 8y ago

The potential for growth is in raising the prices of its products. For example, the price of THE flagship iPhone has gone up by at least $100 for the past 2 releases. The MacBooks are also becoming more and more expensive

UncleMeat 8y ago
10% annual revenue growth is low for a tech giant.