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This is only tangentially related, but I was surprised that Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google were considered the "big four" technology companies. The compari

This is only tangentially related, but I was surprised that Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google were considered the "big four" technology companies. The comparisons to Amazon, Facebook, and Google make sense in that those three (and Yahoo) are all internet companies, but I don't see how Apple fits into this paradigm. The author focuses on Apple's revenues from hardware sales, which has almost nothing to do with any of Yahoo's business. I also found it interesting that Microsoft wasn't mentioned once in the article, considering the fact that it makes much more sense to draw parallels between two software giants trying to turn themselves around (not to mention the fact that Yahoo search is run on Bing). Surely Microsoft is still considered a "Big tech" company?

bigdubs 12y ago
Not mentioned in that list; Microsoft.
hyperpape 12y ago
It's true that Apple has nothing like the direct revenue streams of Facebook or Google coming from the web via advertising (but Amazon isn't in the same business either). What I think the point is that all four companies operate very large online services. There's even significant overlap on a lot of key products: maps, messaging, email.
- atmosx 12y ago
  What are you talking about? Last time I checked Apple was the corp with the deepest cash pockets from all the corps mentioned.
ep103 12y ago
yeah, the big 4 are Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
huxley 12y ago
Apple's software & services revenues are pretty significant, its gross revenue from iTunes Store, App Store, etc comes to $7+ billion per quarter: http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/ http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/ Presumably Yahoo aspires to reach the level of [Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google], Microsoft is in the process of a major pivot so it probably wasn't considered an aspirational target (even if they do make massive amounts of money)
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>Surely Microsoft is still considered a "Big tech" company? MS market cap: 371.84B Yeah, I'd say they're big and I'm not sure if they're trying to "turn themselves around." They're making money hand over fist, mostly from the enterprise end of things and Windows/Office licensing. Of course, they are doing poorly in the mobile arena, but that doesn't mean they're in financial straits.
- serge2k 12y ago
  They are absolutely trying to turn themselves around. They have burnt a ton of bridges and lost a lot of battles.
- throwawaymsft 12y ago
  Hardly in financial straits, but becoming strategically irrelevant to the future of computing (like IBM -- huge, and ignorable).
  - aroman 12y ago
    I really really do not think that IBM is "becoming strategically irrelevant to the future of computing". Maybe the IBM of the early 1990s, but not the IBM of the mid 2010's. Watson and its related technologies are practically synonymous with the future of computing, in my mind.
    - throwawaymsft 12y ago
      Good call, I'd forgotten Watson -- but I think you caught the idea of what a big and ignorable company could be.
Yizahi 12y ago
Yes, it is strange. What about Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, TI, Cisco, IBM, HP, Dell and others?
digi_owl 12y ago
Apple has always been a bit of a darling of the media for some reason or other. My suspicion is that Apple got a foot in the door with the intro of the Mac. And they have stayed there ever since via something similar to the old "nobody was ever fired for buying an IBM". Around where i live i can almost tell who is taking media studies based on the kind of computer they pull out of the bag. If it is a Mac, they are doing media. And thanks to that, the media people pay closer attention to Apple than they do most other tech companies. And with media studies broadening to cover the web, i keep seeing more people defaulting to Mac as the dev platform for web.
- archgoon 12y ago
  > Apple has always been a bit of a darling of the media for some reason or other. They were the punching bag during most of the nineties. The company was in bad state (from 1993 to 1997 there were four different CEOs), their offerings too expensive, and with too few applications running on them and no clear strategy for the company. They were a relevant punching bag primarily because they were the only Non-Microsoft computer that people had ever heard of; and a lot of schools had Apple ][e's (a few macs, but many more Apple ][e's). The main place where Macs were managing to maintain some marketshare was in, as you have noticed, media and publishing. For a while, Photoshop was the primary killer app for the macs, and is still (last I checked) the de facto standard for it's domain. Their image drastically improved when Jobs came back. He launched the "Think Different Campaign", the iMac's with the hockey puck mice (also, he got an injection of $150 million from Microsoft and a commitment from them to build the Internet Explorer for the Mac), and finally delivered a modern operating system (Mac Fans were in denial about how bad the OS was prior to X). Jobs provided a compelling narrative that the media loved telling, of a man banished from the company he founded, and returning to save it from destruction. Also, the perception was that he'd also have to take on Microsoft, so he had the whole "David and Goliath" thing going for him as well. The popularity of this story is effectively why something like "Pirates of Silicon Valley" got made. I'm not entirely sure why mac laptops have gotten such traction in the dev community; but it's not because media studies is broadening to cover the web.
  - GeneralMayhem 12y ago
BashiBazouk 12y ago
Probably has more to do with the story tie in than pure equivalency. Hard to run with the headline "What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs" without Apple being part of the story...

bigdubs 12y ago

Not mentioned in that list; Microsoft.

hyperpape 12y ago

It's true that Apple has nothing like the direct revenue streams of Facebook or Google coming from the web via advertising (but Amazon isn't in the same business either). What I think the point is that all four companies operate very large online services. There's even significant overlap on a lot of key products: maps, messaging, email.

atmosx 12y ago
What are you talking about? Last time I checked Apple was the corp with the deepest cash pockets from all the corps mentioned.

ep103 12y ago

yeah, the big 4 are Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

huxley 12y ago

Apple's software & services revenues are pretty significant, its gross revenue from iTunes Store, App Store, etc comes to $7+ billion per quarter: http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/ http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/ Presumably Yahoo aspires to reach the level of [Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google], Microsoft is in the process of a major pivot so it probably wasn't considered an aspirational target (even if they do make massive amounts of money)

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

>Surely Microsoft is still considered a "Big tech" company? MS market cap: 371.84B Yeah, I'd say they're big and I'm not sure if they're trying to "turn themselves around." They're making money hand over fist, mostly from the enterprise end of things and Windows/Office licensing. Of course, they are doing poorly in the mobile arena, but that doesn't mean they're in financial straits.

serge2k 12y ago
They are absolutely trying to turn themselves around. They have burnt a ton of bridges and lost a lot of battles.
throwawaymsft 12y ago
Hardly in financial straits, but becoming strategically irrelevant to the future of computing (like IBM -- huge, and ignorable).
- aroman 12y ago
  I really really do not think that IBM is "becoming strategically irrelevant to the future of computing". Maybe the IBM of the early 1990s, but not the IBM of the mid 2010's. Watson and its related technologies are practically synonymous with the future of computing, in my mind.
  - throwawaymsft 12y ago
    Good call, I'd forgotten Watson -- but I think you caught the idea of what a big and ignorable company could be.

Yizahi 12y ago

Yes, it is strange. What about Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, TI, Cisco, IBM, HP, Dell and others?

digi_owl 12y ago

Apple has always been a bit of a darling of the media for some reason or other. My suspicion is that Apple got a foot in the door with the intro of the Mac. And they have stayed there ever since via something similar to the old "nobody was ever fired for buying an IBM". Around where i live i can almost tell who is taking media studies based on the kind of computer they pull out of the bag. If it is a Mac, they are doing media. And thanks to that, the media people pay closer attention to Apple than they do most other tech companies. And with media studies broadening to cover the web, i keep seeing more people defaulting to Mac as the dev platform for web.

archgoon 12y ago
> Apple has always been a bit of a darling of the media for some reason or other. They were the punching bag during most of the nineties. The company was in bad state (from 1993 to 1997 there were four different CEOs), their offerings too expensive, and with too few applications running on them and no clear strategy for the company. They were a relevant punching bag primarily because they were the only Non-Microsoft computer that people had ever heard of; and a lot of schools had Apple ][e's (a few macs, but many more Apple ][e's). The main place where Macs were managing to maintain some marketshare was in, as you have noticed, media and publishing. For a while, Photoshop was the primary killer app for the macs, and is still (last I checked) the de facto standard for it's domain. Their image drastically improved when Jobs came back. He launched the "Think Different Campaign", the iMac's with the hockey puck mice (also, he got an injection of $150 million from Microsoft and a commitment from them to build the Internet Explorer for the Mac), and finally delivered a modern operating system (Mac Fans were in denial about how bad the OS was prior to X). Jobs provided a compelling narrative that the media loved telling, of a man banished from the company he founded, and returning to save it from destruction. Also, the perception was that he'd also have to take on Microsoft, so he had the whole "David and Goliath" thing going for him as well. The popularity of this story is effectively why something like "Pirates of Silicon Valley" got made. I'm not entirely sure why mac laptops have gotten such traction in the dev community; but it's not because media studies is broadening to cover the web.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago

BashiBazouk 12y ago

Probably has more to do with the story tie in than pure equivalency. Hard to run with the headline "What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs" without Apple being part of the story...