Stan Beer
Saturday, 07 March 2009 12:58
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
However, Apple rhetoric aside,
let's look at the real reason Cupertino wants you not to install
something that it hasn't approved on your iPhone.
Like all other corporations, Apple wants to make money and
maximise profits. There's nothing wrong with that of course but there
is something wrong with being so greedy that it ends up being
counterproductive.
In the case of the iPhone, Apple wants to
have its cake and eat it too. It not only wants to make the fantastic
profits it makes from the hardware, it also wants to grab a share of
every bit of saleable software for the device.
Once again, it's
fair enough for Apple to maximise the revenues and profits from its
product by setting up a shop to sell applications. However, it's not OK
to stop other parties from selling applications developed for the
iPhone through other sources.
Furthermore, Apple's desire to own
and control the entire iPhone supply chain is not in the best interests
of its shareholders. It actually places limitations on the potential
iPhone market.
The case of Mac versus PC has been examined many
times before but it really does have direct parallels in this case. The
name of the game is applications.
The Mac was light years ahead
of the DOS PC in terms of technology back in 1985. However, by the time
Windows 95 hit the market 10 years later Windows and PCs already
dominated the market. The PC and Windows were open - anybody could
develop applications for them and they did by the thousands.
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