UberMobile
Eric LaiAnalysis: Apple Beating Microsoft in Profits is Triumph of Something Bigger than Hardware Over Software
Summary: In the most recent quarter, Apple hit $5.9 billion in profits, bigger than Microsoft’s $5.2 billion. That’s remarkable, but for more than the rare financial triumph of hardware over software.
The conventional wisdom in high-tech is that making hardware is a grubby, low-margin business and that software is as close to printing money as you can legally get.
In the past year, Apple had already surpassed Microsoft on benchmarks such as market cap and quarterly revenue, but topping them profit-wise is the most significant yet. With all of the pent-up demand for the iPad 2 due to Japanese disaster-related delays, Apple’s near-term profits will only increase.
As we all know, Apple makes all most of its money selling hardware. Microsoft makes about 85% of its revenue selling software (about 10% comes from selling Xbox and Kinect hardware, the rest comes from the money-burning online division).
That a hardware vendor could be more profitable than a software vendor, especially one with multiple franchises with steady revenue streams from corporations (Windows, Office, Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, among others), is incredible.*
Still, I don’t consider Apple bigger profits ($5.9 billion versus Microsoft’s $5.2 billion) a triumph of hardware over software. Hardware remains a dog-eat-dog business. That’s why HP and Dell are moving away from PCs towards software and services, while IBM totally got out of them. Software, provided it is not open-source, remains much easier.
What I think this shows is a triumph of a third factor: good design. By design, I don’t just mean trendy materials or beautiful hardware shells or cute icons. The artsy stuff that employs graphic designers. That’s key to the Apple magic, but it’s only the top level stuff.
What I mean is intuitive user interfaces, tight integration between hardware and software and OS, and a control freak attitude towards your partners’ quality control (i.e. developers in Apple’s App Store).
That’s the deep stuff that most tech vendors, due to their reliance on not-always dependable partners, can’t duplicate.
The conventional wisdom about why Jobs almost killed Apple’s decline and Microsoft’s rise1995 timeframe was that hiJobs’ hardware fetish blinded him to the potential value of licensing the Mac OS to other PC manufacturers in the early 1980s, which would’ve allowed Apple to gain some/all of the profits that Windows got instead. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he killed the Mac OS licensing program that had only been started two years earlier under CEO Michael Spindler.
I have an alternative explanation. Jobs actually overvalued the Mac OS, in the sense that he believed that controlling both hardware and software was the only way he could control the third factor, design, and turn out the best products he could.
As Apple’s success today shows, Jobs’ attitude is perfect for today’s mature hardware market, where differentiating what have essentailly become commodity products through good design/usability is the way to huge profits. It would also carry over well to mature consumer electronics markets like TVs or stereos, which is why Apple is so often rumored to be moving into those markets (Bose has employed this formula so well).
Unfortunately, Jobs’ attitude was woefully out of step with the market 20 years ago, when PCs were new and expensive. Consumers weren’t yet jaded and looking for the radically-designed, beautiful thing - they were just trying to get their hands on a PC for a decent price. Perfectionism doesn’t scale.
Also, Jobs’ attitude clashed with IT buyers. To a CIO, a computer that was too attractive or cute radiated a lack of seriousness of purpose. Mainframes are about as opposite from cute as you can get.
Today’s enterprise IT market is far different. Cloud computing empowered the line of business manager to go around the command-and-control CIO.
That, and the recession’s curb on capital budgets, has forced many CIOs to adopt ‘Bring Your Own Device’ policies and open the door to employee-owned smartphones, laptops and now tablets. It means that consumer preferences will soon start to rule many aspects of enterprise IT. And that can only mean more good news for Apple and Jobs, as well as companies like Sybase and our parent SAP, who are putting an emphasis on usability and design (see this blog post by Timothy Clark on the ‘gamification of business apps.’)
In other words, vendors need to think of themselves as being in the user experience/design business rather than either the hardware or software business. After all, what is providing a good user experience but another way of saying that you want to provide good customer service?
*To be pedantic, Microsoft still has a higher net profit margin than Apple: 32% vs. Apple’s 24%. But as SAI’s Matt Rosoff pointed out, 24% is “unbelievable and spectacular for a hardware company.” Microsoft’s 32% is good but not so unexpected because “software has a much lower cost of goods - once you’ve recovered your R&D investment, every sale is pure profit.” And expect Apple’s quarterly profits to continue to beat Microsoft’s.
More from “UberMobile”
Topics
Biography
Eric Lai
Just In
Those were great! chanel bag
You are welcome and thank you! ^_^ replica chanel bags
The problem for them however, is that the rest of the software that can run on commodotized hardware will eventually get "good enough" and they will bleed marketshare because they can no longer compete on price.
At this point they start focusing on the next big thing instead of trying fight a losing battle.
It is almost non existent in the business world aside as a VERY expansive client to remote into work, where work is done on an MS platform.
Apple will further mean nothing as it will not allow its consumer OSX to be vitualized. Virtualization allows consumers to have choice. While other OSes are freely being virtualized and being used in business, it shows whats to come for the consumer market. Many things like shadow copy/recovery came from the business side first only for features to filter down to the consumer market. Virtualization is a feature that is the next step for flexability and choice to the consumer market. Apple has no vision of this and has sealed its future as a very expensive toy maker.
Steve Jobs was fired (or left, depending on who you talk to) from Apple in May 1995. He founded two companies called NeXT Computer and Pixar before returning to Apple in 1996, Apple having bought NeXT. Bringing Apple out of its near-bankruptcy state, Steve Jobs led the company into an era of prosperity, where it released the iMac, Mac OS X, the iPod, the iTunes Store, the MacBook and MacBook Pro, the Mac Pro, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, and the iPad. Today, Apple is the second most valuable company in the world.
Moral of this comment? Know your Apple history before you bash Steve Jobs.
Moral is OK but I think you meant Jobs left Apple in *1985* etc., thereby rendering this article to a dog's breakfast.
Join the conversation!
Blogger Biography
Eric Lai tracks the latest news and trends in enterprise mobility. A veteran tech journalist most recently covering enterprise software for Computerworld, Eric joined Sybase, an SAP company in April 2010. Eric's views are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of SAP.
This blog is sponsored by SAP.
Related Links
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
Vendor Showcase
Blog Roll
- All About Microsoft
- The Apple Core
- Between the Lines
- Big on Data
- BriefingsDirect
- Collaboration 2.0
- Consumerization: BYOD
- Dev Connection
- Digital Cameras & Camcorders
- DIY-IT
- The Ed Bott Report
- Emerging Tech
- Enterprise Web 2.0
- Five Nines: The Next Gen Datacenter
- Forrester Research
- Friending Facebook
- Gamification
- Googling Google
- GreenTech Pastures
- Hardware 2.0
- Home Theater
- Identity Matters
- iGeneration
- India IT
- Irregular Enterprise
- IT Project Failures
- Laptops & Desktops
- Linux and Open Source
- London Calling
- The Mobile Gadgeteer
- Mobile News
- Networking
- Pulp Tech
- Reference Desk
- SEO Whistleblower
- Service Oriented
- Small Business Matters
- Smartphones and Cell Phones
- Social Business
- Social CRM: The Conversation
- Software & Services Safari
- Software as Services
- Storage Bits
- Tech Broiler
- Tom Foremski: IMHO
- The ToyBox
- View from China
- Virtually Speaking
- ZDNet Education
- ZDNet Government
- ZDNet Health
- Zero Day
Blog Archive
White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
-
Office 365 Migration Guide: Approaches, Techniques and ChallengesNo Headache, No Hassles Microsoft 365 Migration
Your company is ... (Quest Software)Download Now - Seven Keys to Success in Managing Your Business-Critical CloudNeed a few tips on how to manage your cloud infrastructure? Here are seven ... (Hewlett-Packard (HP))Download Now
- The Best Ways to Migrate Lotus Notes Applications to SharePoint and Office 365Migrating Notes to SharePoint Online/Microsoft Office ... (Quest Software)Download Now
