Apple passes Microsoft to be biggest tech company

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Apple passes Microsoft to be biggest tech company

BBC News - Apple passes Microsoft to be biggest tech company

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petedude

Not completely a surprise, just happened a little sooner than I'd thought.

MS has been slowly losing a trickle of customers and market share, and at some point in the future may be marginalized to either/and/or:
1) An entertainment gadget company, like Apple or Nintendo
2) An infrastructure networking company, like IBM of late

. . . but it won't be long before they stop commanding the personal computing market. Windows 7 has slowed the slide a little, but not by much. Apple and Linux are creating highly competitive offerings, for starters.

earweed

While it's true that the ipod, ipad, and iphone has expanded apples share of the market I don't see MS going away anytime soon. After I complete my MCITP:EA I'm going to take the 70-680 on my own and then go for the Linux+ as I see that being an important part of the computing and system management scenario. I'm then going to pursue more Linux and just maintain MS certs as their technology changes.
I mostly agree with your option 2 up there petedude but MS will still have a big handle on the PC market until Linux developers get Linux machines as user friendly as Windows or Mac's OS. Then MS may really start to get insignificant.

veritas_libertas

petedude wrote: »

. . . but it won't be long before they stop commanding the personal computing market. Windows 7 has slowed the slide a little, but not by much. Apple and Linux are creating highly competitive offerings, for starters.

Maybe, but right now they are the BMW of computers. Their prices are much higher than your typical laptop and even though I have tinkered with an Apple iMac in college I cannot afford to buy one.

earweed

The last Apple I tinkered with was an Apple II..dating myself here..and that was in college also. Mac was still in the developmental stages.

Devilsbane

Microsoft has 2 problems.

1) They basically only make OS software. Sure they have the zune and some mobile devices, but neither are very popular.

2) Windows XP was too good. I know, first time you have probably heard that line. But there are many people that are still using old computers with XP on them and they work great. How many older Mac's are still in operation? I really can't think of anyone I know with a Mac older than 2-3 years or so.

XP being too good set them up for a failed vista, because people refused to give up an awesome os for bugs. Windows 7 has fixed some of those performace gaps, but people are still holding onto their XP systems.

tiersten

Devilsbane wrote: »

1) They basically only make OS software. Sure they have the zune and some mobile devices, but neither are very popular.

Office, Exchange and Visual Studio are all major departments and areas for Microsoft. Not quite as huge as the Windows department but still significant.

Devilsbane wrote: »

2) Windows XP was too good. I know, first time you have probably heard that line. But there are many people that are still using old computers with XP on them and they work great. How many older Mac's are still in operation? I really can't think of anyone I know with a Mac older than 2-3 years or so.

Generally its the other way around from my experience and from what I've seen others mention. People with an old Mac are still using it whilst Windows users are upgrading every few years.

Devilsbane

tiersten wrote: »

Office, Exchange and Visual Studio are all major departments and areas for Microsoft. Not quite as huge as the Windows department but still significant.

Yes, very true. MS has 3 things going for them.

Generally its the other way around from my experience and from what I've seen others mention. People with an old Mac are still using it whilst Windows users are upgrading every few years.

That is very interesting. I wonder why there is a difference?

tiersten

Devilsbane wrote: »

Yes, very true. MS has 3 things going for them.

Their gaming division is also pretty big but I've no idea if they're actually making a significant profit out of there considering the hardware was originally sold under cost and they had to set aside a huge bucket of cash to cover repairs for RRoD 360s. Development costs are going to be extremely high as well due to the custom and high end nature of gaming consoles.

Devilsbane wrote: »

That is very interesting. I wonder why there is a difference?

I'd say it was a combination of different usage patterns and OSX having a cleaner design due to it being newer and not having quite as many backwards compatibility shims. Actual hardware differences between a PC and a Mac are minimal now. You get EFI instead of the PC BIOS and most of the legacy devices just don't exist.

Hyper-Me

What an ignorant article.

"apple is bigger than MS except that MS brings in more revenue and profit than Apple and has massive market share leads in all categories except personal media players"

lmao.

It also said "the ending prices in shaky trading" meaning the market has been a little volative...meaning the numbers are going to be skewed in certain directions, and isnt indicate of any long term trends.

I don't even really see the two companys at competitors. Apple is dominating the numbskull consumer market with their personal media devices and phone. MS continues to dominate the consumer and enterprise markets with their client/server OS and many other products. I also don't see an Apple gaming console?

msteinhilber

So despite Mr. Jobs absolutely raping their consumers for profit (making this very difficult for users to service, charging for minor updates, etc) he still can't squeak out a higher profit. I'll take the "smaller" tech company with about 9 billion higher profits, thank you.

rfult001

Devilsbane wrote: »

Yes, very true. MS has 3 things going for them.

SharePoint, System Center, Dynamics...

http://www.microsoft.com/servers/product.mspx

tomahawkeer

I've been working on both MACs and PCs professionally for almost 10 years now (Network Administrator for a newspaper). And while it may be true that there are a lot of older MACs out there, at least from my perspective, its due to a price tag, as opposed to anything else.

We have several pieces of specialized software, that will only run on the likes of MAC OS 8.6 and / or 9.2. To purchase new macs (which run upwards of 2k a pop for mac pros) is just the beginning. Some of the software that cannot be used on newer MACs for us, would run in excess of 20k to 200k depending on how big of a step we need to take. Apple makes it almost impossible to buy a new Mac and downgrade it to an older OS. They may allow you to downgrade 1 version at some point, but we have macs taht are around 2-3 years old, and cannot replace them because it would be a huge undertaking in regards to price (not just the machines themselves) but completely repurchasing our front end and back end systems for the newspaper.

What Steve Jobs has created with his company, is nothing more than a money sucking black hole, that sucks smaller companies dry if they have the need to upgrade specialized software, and IMO the biggest reason for this, is the expansion of thier product to such things as the IPod /Pad / Phone etc.

If I could ever convince the higher ups at my company to make the switch from MAC to PC for our design and layout needs, I would do it in a heart beat (been trying to do this for 8 years now). I feel like I haven't even touched the surface with the problems that ive seen with Apple's OS's, but for arguments sakes, ill end it here.

Needless to say, Apple's growth, will not be aided by my hard earned money, in any way shape or form (gadget or pc), and while Microsoft is not perfect by any means, I would absolutely support them well before Apple.

subl1m1nal

This article should clarify: Apple passes Microsoft as biggest CONSUMER tech company.

No way is Apple even close to competing in the business world.

The only thing that Apple is doing right is iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes gig. From a computer perspective, Microsoft still has the market share, and always will until Apple can make their products reasonably priced for businesses and make network products that are better than Microsofts.

I've been in this rodeo with Apple fanboys before.

One thing Apple could do to chip at that market share is allowing OSX to run on PC's (without hackintoshing it). Sell the OSX PC version for $150 or however much M$ sells theirs for. I'd dual boot it if they could sell me a working version.

I don't agree with Apples business tactics. They're nearly antitrust practices. I don't want a device that is controlled by "big brother" Apple. I want to choose the software I want to run on it, even if it isn't approved by Apple. I want to use the hardware that I choose, even if Apple doesn't certify it. It kind of feels like they shove their products down the fanboys throats. Every 1 1/2 to 2 years, you're dropping another $2,000 for the latest gadget. Screw that!

tpatt100

Still find it funny that Apple almost disappeared not that long ago and now "they" are
being considered a threat.

Pash

I used to support macs and pc's for dev's a couple of years ago. I used to unbox new mac desktops and laptops and build them up. They are nice bit's of kit, and I can understand why Apple is a popular consumer brand. But personally for me, computing is all about customization. I mean I have a powerful rig at home with eyefinity running (3x 22" dell monitors) and I do lot's of gaming, lab work etc, even more recently some dev work (more for my own projects). I geuninely like windows 7, and there are a few linux distros which really cut it for me as well. I am a happy bee not paying the premium for the hardware and software that I would do with a MAC for home use.

Pash

tpatt100 wrote: »

Still find it funny that Apple almost disappeared not that long ago and now "they" are
being considered a threat.

Ohh they are a threat, but as others have pointed out it is a consumer threat for the home user. MS does make fantastic business products, exchange is light years ahead of notes for one of many examples.

I don't think MS are crying into their milk at the moment.

Webmaster

tpatt100 wrote: »

Still find it funny that Apple almost disappeared not that long ago and now "they" are being considered a threat.

Most funny thing about it is that Microsoft loaned Apple $150mil to get back on their feet.

Check out the section "The real story: Potential versus profits" in the following article for more meaningful numbers:
How Apple Passed Microsoft: A Breakdown - AOL News

stuh84

Pash wrote: »

But personally for me, computing is all about customization.

I'm the opposite, computing to me is a tool to do what I need to do. The one which makes it easiest to do what I want to do is the best tool for the job. I use Macs and Linux at home, and can do everything I want with them, and never feel limited. Unfortunately whenever I use Windows, I never feel the same.

I aint bothered about gaming much, at least not on PCs, I've enough consoles for quick work like that. Most of what I do on computers though is network engineering, server management and general browsing. Throw in the fact I'm a musician and like to record music in my downtime, and I just find Macs the right tool for the jobs I do

I just like the fact that I have an OS with a native shell, native SSH support so I can control anything on it remotely, and yet commercially supported apps are aplenty for anything I need that for. I don't get either with Windows or Linux, so for me its the best of both worlds.

Pash

stuh84 wrote: »

I'm the opposite, computing to me is a tool to do what I need to do. The one which makes it easiest to do what I want to do is the best tool for the job. I use Macs and Linux at home, and can do everything I want with them, and never feel limited. Unfortunately whenever I use Windows, I never feel the same.

Sorry but I meant more towards hardware. Like I said, I also have a lot of time for many Linux distros. I visit distrowatch lot's and I also have a pile of linux format sub magazines behind me. Of course, you cannot mess about with Windows as much, this is a true fact but I am an avid gamer like I mentioned and also having a windows OS at home always means i keep current and I keep learning. Apart from specialist dev/creative environment's windows has the lion share.

stuh84 wrote: »

I aint bothered about gaming much, at least not on PCs, I've enough consoles for quick work like that. Most of what I do on computers though is network engineering, server management and general browsing. Throw in the fact I'm a musician and like to record music in my downtime, and I just find Macs the right tool for the jobs I do.

I completely hear ya, that dev team I used to support was actually the famous Japanese establishment beginning with a Y (R&D London). So I am well aware how important Mac's are for that type of work and how much favour they have with the dev's and artists. Not because I have interest in music creation (i did hold a Technics grade 3 when i was much younger and can barely remember c and g7 cords) but because I spoke to the users and tried to understand why.

stuh84 wrote: »

I just like the fact that I have an OS with a native shell, native SSH support so I can control anything on it remotely, and yet commercially supported apps are aplenty for anything I need that for. I don't get either with Windows or Linux, so for me its the best of both worlds.

Disagree on this. Native shell with Windows would now be Powershell, Linux has always had a strong shell you can do pretty much anything from. Native SSH is a different matter, depends how important that is to you as a home user but Linux can be configured easily for ssh access (i was controlling my CENTOS web server remotely for the last few years).

There is a market for all of the above. In all honesty imagine a world without any of them and all of a sudden IT gets VERY VERY boring. I love learning new thing's and I am not a fanboy of any single vendor or product.

tpatt100

Well if I remember correctly Microsoft bought all that Apple stock to help them
avoid going under in order to help Microsoft avoid an anti-trust breakup.

I don't think Apple is hurting the consumer at all because the consumer is choosing the buy their products. Microsoft has done their fair share if not much more to hurt competition back in the day. They have thrown billions of dollars behind their Xbox which I don't think that division makes much money anyways just to increase marketshare.

Several years ago in the business sector their licensing was hard to understand for thin clients, they changed it to avoid companies saving money time sharing applications.

stuh84

Pash wrote: »

Disagree on this. Native shell with Windows would now be Powershell, Linux has always had a strong shell you can do pretty much anything from. Native SSH is a different matter, depends how important that is to you as a home user but Linux can be configured easily for ssh access (i was controlling my CENTOS web server remotely for the last few years).

There is a market for all of the above. In all honesty imagine a world without any of them and all of a sudden IT gets VERY VERY boring. I love learning new thing's and I am not a fanboy of any single vendor or product.

My home Fedora server had native SSH access, but my point is my Macs have native SSH access when I need to use them for that, but commercially supported apps (recording programs, good office programs unlike OpenOffice, etc) when I need them.

For me as a home user, native SSH intently useful, as there has been times where I have been at work, and thought I'd have my Mac Pro on, and have a play with something on the Macs. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to enable the VNC server for quick access to something. All I did was drop into a terminal, ssh in, drop in one command, and I was done.

When I mean native shell though, I dont just mean a powerful shell, I mean a shell I can control every process running in, and sort out configuration files and the like.

This is why, as I say, it's the best mix of both for me, I've got a slick GUI for general use, which still is a LONG way off on Linux (as much as I like it, the GUI has a long way to go), I can drop into a terminal when I need to (which is a lot), can SSH, SCP etc to and from the machine. it just makes sense for me. I'm not the average Mac user, I won't deny that, but that doesn't mean I don't think its the best platform for what I need to do.

I would never say a Mac is perfect for everyone, but there are many out there who would say a Mac is ONLY for people who have no idea what they are doing, which just isn't the case.

Hyper-Me

stuh84 wrote: »

Most of what I do on computers though is network engineering, server management and general browsing

Except for the part where some switches require serial ports and Mac's don't have one.

At my last job we had several Asst Network Admins swearing by Macbook Pros and then they went to replace/config swiches and I had to loan them my Dell laptop with a serial port so they could do their job. I absolutely never let them live that down.

stuh84

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Except for the part where some switches require serial ports and Mac's don't have one.

At my last job we had several Asst Network Admins swearing by Macbook Pros and then they went to replace/config swiches and I had to loan them my Dell laptop with a serial port so they could do their job. I absolutely never let them live that down.

I'm currently using a PC laptop with Linux on, without a serial port

, this isn't limited to Macs. Also, how much does a USB to Serial converter cost these days? Almost nothing.

I wouldn't exactly say a platform can't do something when all it takes is a £5 dongle to sort that

I don't have a Windows PC in my house, yet I manage to configure up Ciscos on a regular basis, using Macs never stopped me

tpatt100

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Except for the part where some switches require serial ports and Mac's don't have one.

At my last job we had several Asst Network Admins swearing by Macbook Pros and then they went to replace/config swiches and I had to loan them my Dell laptop with a serial port so they could do their job. I absolutely never let them live that down.

Most of our laptops don't have serial ports anymore. My current Dell Precision M6400 doesnt have one, I had to order a USB serial adapter to connect to a switch.