4 ms·

Apple has two things Bing & Google don't: 1) an ad-free business model 2) control of Siri & Spotlight, the native search functions on a huge swath of devices

by abalone 12y ago

Apple has two things Bing & Google don't: 1) an ad-free business model 2) control of Siri & Spotlight, the native search functions on a huge swath of devices I'd say they have a fighting chance.

robotresearcher 12y ago
A fighting chance of what? Unless they monetize search, it's just a cost. What ad-free business model can monetize search? Unless they are paying Google a fortune to be the current engine, and rolling their own is cheaper. This seems unlikely.
- abalone 12y ago
  > What ad-free business model can monetize search? The one where you make craptons of profits selling high-margin devices that come bundled with services that offer ad-free user experiences and maximum privacy. And it's Google that pays Apple a fortune to be the current engine, not the other way around. Just to give you an idea of who holds the cards here.
  - bobajeff 12y ago
    There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers; it's to help pay for the cost of running the App store.
    - redler 12y ago
      They're generating profits at a rate of $200 Million per day [sic]. It's fair to say they make enough to pay for the costs of almost anything, including this. You've identified the one requirement they can in fact satisfy; the hard part is... everything else. Edit: Clarity
      - bobajeff 12y ago
        You may be right. Assuming you're right about their profits, that's 18B per quarter. Operating cost have been said to be around 5B per quarter for Google and 1.25B per quarter for Bing.
        abalone 12y ago
        Source please? Bear in mind they're already running their own competitive map service for exactly the same reasons I say they want to run their own web search. And that's probably not cheap either.
        Thimothy 12y ago
        They started running their map service because google was about to start charging for Google Maps. iMaps already had a rollout that felt improvised and pretty crappy, if the Apple people were suicidal enough to get in a huge business they have absolutely no idea about, such as Web Search, I wouldn't expect a barely usable product in years.
        redler 12y ago
        I don't remember anything about a fee, but I do specifically recall something about Google withholding from the iOS version two greatly desired features that had already been deployed on Android: vector tiles and turn-by-turn directions. The lack of the latter, at least, was beginning to rise to the level of consumer awareness as an iOS weakness.
        bobajeff 12y ago
        My source for the costs of Google: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/07/23/from-112-servers-to-5b-spent-on-google-data-centers-per-quarter/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/07/23/from-... "Google data centers cost the company more than $5 billion in the second quarter of 2014" My source for the costs of Bing: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-losing-billions-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-losing-billion... "Put differently, Bing is spending $5.5 billion a year to generate $3 billion of revenue." (I divided by four to get quarterly) GPS data is not really on the same level as Web Crawl data. How often is a street added or changed versus a web page?
    - coldtea 12y ago
      >There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) Well, they are like double the market cap of Google, and (where it matters) they have astonishingly higher profits and revenue than it, to the point that it's like corner-store vs Amazon.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers: Because they can. They clear ~$40 billion a year that they can use for whatever. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL+Income+Statement&annual http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL+Income+Statement&annual They use a lot of it to issue a dividend and buy back shares of the stock.
  - Steko 12y ago
    I don't think ad free or privacy is a big winner for sales or user experience. However the future of the platform involves more and more search like actions and iOS's current answer of 100 different services spaghetti'd together under Siri (or use Google in Safari) is kludgey and half-baked today and certainly not a long term solution. Apple likes to control all the parts of the user experience and search is going to get bigger every year.
- dataminded 12y ago
  Why does Apple need to make money on search?
  - robotresearcher 12y ago
    Why would they do search if it didn't make them money directly or otherwise?
    - coldtea 12y ago
      The question didn't include "otherwise" (e.g from selling more iphones and macs due to better search services available only for them). He just asked "why would they have to make money", i.e. directly from search. If you don't mean that by "otherwise", then we can also ask: "Why would they do Maps if it didn't make them money directly or otherwise?" Why would they do
Steko 12y ago
You forgot 3) not banned in China
wodenokoto 12y ago
MS had a much bigger advantage on PC in this regard when they started out with search.
coldtea 12y ago
And tons of cache to spare. They make more in a month than Google does all year around.

by abalone 12y ago

Apple has two things Bing & Google don't: 1) an ad-free business model 2) control of Siri & Spotlight, the native search functions on a huge swath of devices I'd say they have a fighting chance.

robotresearcher 12y ago

A fighting chance of what? Unless they monetize search, it's just a cost. What ad-free business model can monetize search? Unless they are paying Google a fortune to be the current engine, and rolling their own is cheaper. This seems unlikely.

abalone 12y ago
> What ad-free business model can monetize search? The one where you make craptons of profits selling high-margin devices that come bundled with services that offer ad-free user experiences and maximum privacy. And it's Google that pays Apple a fortune to be the current engine, not the other way around. Just to give you an idea of who holds the cards here.
- bobajeff 12y ago
  There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers; it's to help pay for the cost of running the App store.
  - redler 12y ago
    They're generating profits at a rate of $200 Million per day [sic]. It's fair to say they make enough to pay for the costs of almost anything, including this. You've identified the one requirement they can in fact satisfy; the hard part is... everything else. Edit: Clarity
    - bobajeff 12y ago
      You may be right. Assuming you're right about their profits, that's 18B per quarter. Operating cost have been said to be around 5B per quarter for Google and 1.25B per quarter for Bing.
      - abalone 12y ago
        Source please? Bear in mind they're already running their own competitive map service for exactly the same reasons I say they want to run their own web search. And that's probably not cheap either.
        Thimothy 12y ago
        They started running their map service because google was about to start charging for Google Maps. iMaps already had a rollout that felt improvised and pretty crappy, if the Apple people were suicidal enough to get in a huge business they have absolutely no idea about, such as Web Search, I wouldn't expect a barely usable product in years.
        redler 12y ago
        I don't remember anything about a fee, but I do specifically recall something about Google withholding from the iOS version two greatly desired features that had already been deployed on Android: vector tiles and turn-by-turn directions. The lack of the latter, at least, was beginning to rise to the level of consumer awareness as an iOS weakness.
        bobajeff 12y ago
        My source for the costs of Google: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/07/23/from-112-servers-to-5b-spent-on-google-data-centers-per-quarter/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/07/23/from-... "Google data centers cost the company more than $5 billion in the second quarter of 2014" My source for the costs of Bing: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-losing-billions-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-losing-billion... "Put differently, Bing is spending $5.5 billion a year to generate $3 billion of revenue." (I divided by four to get quarterly) GPS data is not really on the same level as Web Crawl data. How often is a street added or changed versus a web page?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) Well, they are like double the market cap of Google, and (where it matters) they have astonishingly higher profits and revenue than it, to the point that it's like corner-store vs Amazon.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers: Because they can. They clear ~$40 billion a year that they can use for whatever. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL+Income+Statement&annual http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL+Income+Statement&annual They use a lot of it to issue a dividend and buy back shares of the stock.
- Steko 12y ago
  I don't think ad free or privacy is a big winner for sales or user experience. However the future of the platform involves more and more search like actions and iOS's current answer of 100 different services spaghetti'd together under Siri (or use Google in Safari) is kludgey and half-baked today and certainly not a long term solution. Apple likes to control all the parts of the user experience and search is going to get bigger every year.
dataminded 12y ago
Why does Apple need to make money on search?
- robotresearcher 12y ago
  Why would they do search if it didn't make them money directly or otherwise?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    The question didn't include "otherwise" (e.g from selling more iphones and macs due to better search services available only for them). He just asked "why would they have to make money", i.e. directly from search. If you don't mean that by "otherwise", then we can also ask: "Why would they do Maps if it didn't make them money directly or otherwise?" Why would they do

Steko 12y ago

You forgot 3) not banned in China

wodenokoto 12y ago

MS had a much bigger advantage on PC in this regard when they started out with search.

coldtea 12y ago

And tons of cache to spare. They make more in a month than Google does all year around.