Microsoft’s hesitancy may keep it from making the leap to the Mac App Store in time, dooming Office

by DanCentury

Microsoft debates bringing Office to the Mac App Store
[Via Edible Apple]

All Things D reports that Microsoft is toying with the idea of bringing Microsoft Office to the nascent Mac App Store. As it stands now, sales of the Mac version of Office are doing quite well, but the Mac App Store opens up a market of millions of potentially new customers. Indeed, stories of huge spikes in sales via the Mac App Store are beginning to emerge.

“It’s something we are looking at,” Microsoft’s Amanda Lefebvre explained.

Still, Microsoft probably isn’t too keen on Apple taking a 30% cut of its healthy Office profits. Moreover, Microsoft Office is quite possibly the most popular piece of software ever created so it’s not like Microsoft really needs added visibility to its already uber-popular productivity software.

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This is a really strategic issue for Windows. Obviously Office on the Mac is a big money maker for them. But the outrageous sales some are seeing from the App Store –€“ selling a a years worth of software in 20 days –means it should not lurk too long.

I’ve already started using Pages for some of my work – I can use it on any device I have now. The only time I ever open up word is just to check that my converted Pages document – converted to Word for those in the Windows world – still looks fine. I have not composed anything in Word for almost 2 months.

The longer MS waits, the more likely others will move away from Office software, and find really nice alternatives. Sure, some people need the high power of office, but that could start dropping with competition. It provides an interesting conundrum.

How rapidly could MS create an Office cohort for the Mac App store? Well, the app economy may require a development cycle that is way too fast for MS.

How the app economy changes the playing field

by Cristiano Betta

Autodesk sells twice as many copies of Sketchbook Pro via Mac App Store than they did in all of 2010
[Via Edible Apple]

Seeing as how the Mac App Store isn’t even a month old yet, it’s far too early in the game to predict what type of affects it will have on Mac developers, both big and small. Still, just a few weeks in and we’re already starting to hear Mac App Store success stories sprouting up here and there.

Just last week,Pixelmator proudly announced that they had already grossed over $1 million in app store revenue in 20 days. Now comes word that Autodesk sold twice as many copies (2 million to be exact) of Sketchbook Pro via the Mac App store in 20 days than they had during 2010. Now that’s impressive.

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I would assume many developers would be ecstatic to sell as much in 20 days as they had the entire year previously. The sales departments quotas will have to be greatly altered. The app economy changes everything.

But this comment from the Loop adds something important to the process:

Autodesk engineered the Mac App Store edition of Sketchbook Pro to comply with Apple’s developer requirements, which are, as a company representative admitted, somewhat out of the typical comfort zones for Autodesk: For example, Mac App Store apps aren’t supposed to use private APIs, can’t incorporate their own end user licensing agreements, and can’t employ separate copy protection. As a result, sharing code with the iOS version made the process easier, though SketchBook Pro is scaled up to take advantage of the increased processing power and memory footprint of the Mac.

I wrote about this a month ago, before the Mac App Store opened. Developers can access a single set of core APIs that will take them across any digital device. No other company – not Google, not Microsoft – provides a single core OS that spans this range. Thus, when a developer makes an app for one Apple iOS device, they already have started development on apps for any device.

The killer app for Apple is the ability of developers to so easily move their software between devices.

Their development cycle was much shorter and easier because they could share code already developed for iOS. Now they have a code base that allows them to work on ANY digital device, from a mobile phone to a tablet to a laptop or desktop. Heck, it might not be out of the realm to have something in the future on an AppleTV App Store.

And they sell a heck of lot more copies, making their bottom line go up.

This is another innovation that other companies have no hope of copying.At least anytime soon.

An Android developer is limited to a cell phone or a tablet for their app. Same with Windows Phone 7 – which is still getting beat by the older Windows Mobile 6. And device fragmentation inhibits development even on specific devices.

Only Apple connects mobile developers with desktop in ways to make their life easier, and wealthier.

Al Jazeera is on my iPad

by Joi

Al Jazeera in Egypt is cable’s ‘Sputnik moment’
[Via Doc Searls Weblog]

Cable companies: Add Al Jazeera English *now* Jeff Jarvis commands, correctly, on his blog — and also in Huffpo, under the headine We Want Our Al Jazeera English Now. For me now was a few minutes ago, when I read both items on the family iPad, which has been our main news portal since the Boston Globe quit coming and I suspended my efforts to reach them by Web or phone. (The Globe also wants a bunch of ID crap when I go there on the iPad, so they’re silent that way too.) So I went to the App store, looked up Al Jazeera, saw something called Al Jazeera English Live was available for free, got it, and began watching live protest coverage from Cairo.

We don’t have cable here. We dumped it after network news turned to shit, and we found it was easier to watch movies on Netflix. We still like to watch sports, but cable for sports alone is too expensive, because it’s always bundled with junk we don’t want and not available à la carte. (You know, like stuff is on the Web.) When we want TV news, we go online or get local TV through an EyeTV gizmo plugged into an old Mac laptop. Works well, but it’s still TV.

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al Jazeera English has been the only real time news source i could watch online. I’ve also noticed that they break news, often directly from Egyptian sources, that does not make it onto American cabe news for several hours.

It also presents a much more news-centric view than on cable news. So much of US media relies on news personalities, not the news itself. We then have pundits tell us what we saw, with really very little serious discussion besides simply shouting. al Jazeera seems to use the BBC approach –  putting the news first with the reporters in the background. And they ask their experts really tough questions, not just letting them talk without push-back, no matter which side the guest is on.

The staff are not hired for looking pretty but for being very articulate, able to work very well extemporaneously in ways our TV personalities do not. And finally, our media is all about us – how will this affect us, what about Americans trapped in the violence, what about the price of oil? Also a lot of fear – making it seem as though looters are everywhere, for example.  This in lieu of real reporting.

But it was the ability to watch on the iPad that sealed the deal. They are even mice enough to warn people about possible data costs from streaming – that 10minutes is about 7.2 Mbytes of downloading.

Now I don’t care if cable carries al Jazeera. I may not watch all the time but if something breaks in the Middle East, I certainly will.

The Samsung Galaxy Tablet reveals that sold is in the eye of the beholder!

Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales Actually ‘Quite Small’
[Via Daring Fireball]

Evan Ramstad, reporting for the WSJ:

In early December, Samsung announced it had sold 1 million, declaring that sales were going “faster than expected.” Then, in early January, Samsung announced sales of 2 million.

But during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Friday, a Samsung executive revealed those figures don’t represent actual sales to consumers. Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices that Samsung has shipped to wireless companies and retailers around the world since product’s formal introduction in late September.

Pressed by an analyst at an investment bank, the Samsung executive, Lee Young-hee, acknowledged that sales to consumers were “quite small,” though she didn’t give a specific number.

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Yeah, Samsung ‘sold’ the tablet 2 million times. But that number is not to consumers but to its channel partners – the cell phone companies that will sell the tablet to consumers.

Apple’s number of 11.4 million sold reflects iPads in consumer’s hands. We have no such idea from Samsung. In fact, not a single unit could be in any consumer’s hands yet Samsung could claim 2 million sold.

It will be important to se if these numbers decline as real sales are seen and not just channel filling. Keep an eye out for specials being run by carriers as they try and move inventory that is not normally moving.

Ain’t marketing fun? Luckily it appears that some reporters are asking hard questions but too many simply spread the misinformation.