“Microsoft marked the one-year anniversary of Windows Phone 7 development details with an attack on Android, iOS, and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook,” Electronista reports.
“The company’s Brandon Watson said WP7 had reached 11,500 active apps by focusing on ‘quality over quantity’ where other rivals had been padding,” Electronista reports. “”We recognize the importance of getting great apps on our platform and not artificially inflating the number of actual apps available to customer by listing ‘wallpapers’ as a category, or perhaps allowing competitor’s apps to run on the platform to increase ‘tonnage,” he said.”
Why settle for one? Apple has both quality and quantity. One person’s “quality” app is another’s “junk,” especially if it doesn’t do what that person needs to be done. Apple’s iOS is the only platform with not only the best apps, but also the most. Microsoft’s sales pitch lacks substance, as usual. Note also that with the Mac, because it came first and actually had Human Interface Guidelines in place, it had high quality even where it lacked quantity. In some cases, the Mac even had both quality and quantity; for example, Photoshop plugins have always been more varied and generally better quality than on Windows.
Electronista continues, “Google’s willingness to accept almost anything as an Android app, Apple’s ban on trial apps, and RIM’s decision to emulate Android apps on the PlayBook were all hiding the number of meaningful apps, Microsoft’s Brandon Watson said… In a criticism of Apple, he noted that most Windows Phone Marketplace apps took an average of 1.8 days to get approved. Apple has usually touted the vast majority of apps getting approved within two weeks and has notably taken months for some apps with no explanation, especially for apps from Google that it saw as competition. Microsoft has been helped by the considerably lower number of apps it needs approve, where Apple needs to approve thousands each day.”
Read more in the full article here.
For quite some time now, the only thing Microsoft has had left is talk. Empty, meaningless words.
Did you know that Microsoft has outspent Apple roughly 8-1 in R&D over the last decade (8-1!) and in that time, Apple has produced Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, tens of groundbreaking Mac models (multiple iMac versions, the iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Air, Power Macs, etc.), iPod, popularized Podcasting, iTunes, iTunes Store, iPhone, iOS, Apple TV, the App Store, Mac App Store, and, oh, yeah, iPad.
Microsoft, on the other hand, for 8X the money, has come up with yet another upside-down and backwards Mac OS X clone, a service pack pretending to be a new Windows version, and some bloated Office retreads, plus the Zune, Kin, Bing, and Windows Phone ’07. If it wasn’t for the Sony-inspired Xbox (sans product quality, i.e. Red Ring of Death) and a Nintendo-inspired Xbox controller, Microsoft would have nothing but a sting of failures to show for roughly 80 billion dollars. The ratio of R&D to revenue for both companies couldn’t be more telling.
$80 billion for a PlayStation clone, an accessory to make it work like a Wii, an also-ran search engine, and what’s left of Nokia.
That’s just laughable.
Any random person picked off the street could have run Microsoft better during the last decade (May Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!). Microsoft is an expert at two things: Stupid product names and waste. They waste their money and time and they waste their customers’ money, time, and patience.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
so sad…
This is a bad article. Apple has done a fantastic job over the last 10 years. However, to say that MS waste money reveals myopic bias or utter foolishness. MS, over the last 7 years has returned over $100 billion just in dividends. It still has over $40 billion on the balance sheet. It generated several times the profit of Apple over that same period.
No doubt that Apple has produced better growth over the same period. They have done a fantatsic job of introducing classy products. But that doesn’t save this article from its complete stupidity.
If MS experience is any indication, it should tell everyone that, often, today’s heroes could be tomorrow’s nobodies. Apple is not special in that regard.
Microsoft was never a hero, they were just in the right place at the right time (that place was stealing from Apple). As far as R&D to profit ratio, Apple is way ahead. For what it spends on R&D compared to what it makes, they’re light years ahead. And Apple don’t even have the free money OEM lock in thing that Microsoft does.
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. I hate Windows, but I would never be so juvenile as to claim their success is solely tied to luck.
Grow up Billy.
Sure, there’ll always be someone’s preferred metric that shows their favorite company/team in the best possible light. R&D ratio could be one such thing. I have not looked at it. Google, arguably, has a better return on invested capital than most other company, but that doesn’t mean than every other company that does a little worse than Google is wasting their capital. That was the point of my comment.
As for luck, you can not fool all people all of the time. 35 years is all of the time. If MS copied Apple, and they were more successful than Apple in the past, that says a lot about the MS management’s ability to execute better than Apple over the same period of time.
When it comes to business of technology, there are two basic strategies – first mover or fast follower. In business, one strategy is not considered superior to the other. It is about delivering what the consumers want and willing to pay for. Regardless of your strategy, it doesn’t make you a bad company.
Copying is how technology is developed. Nobody starts from reinventing the wheel. Xerox invented GUI both Apple & MS improved on it. Apple didn’t invent MP3 players, laptops, tablets, smart phones or even touch screens. But they are extremely good at improving and combining exciting existing technologies. Innovation happens at the margin – it takes what already exists, and makes it better.
You lost me at “classy products” made by MS.
Which tells me that you have a problem with reading comprehension.
To say that MS wastes money reveals a healthy connection to reality.
The list of their failed products is epic. The amount of money sunk into them is insane. See Windows Phone 7 for the latest example. Wasting money is the only thing MS truly excels at aside from being a predatory monopolist and playing dirty.
Pretty funny you have to look back over a timespan of SEVEN YEARS in order to paint a flattering picture of them, by the way. Today, in 2011, Microsoft is a rudderless behemoth too hopelessly bloated to change course and avert the iceberg even if it did still have rudders. The Windows hegemony is crumbling – both Vista and 7 were shunned by many, adopted by few. Mac marketshare keeps shooting up like a rocket. Mobile computing is the next big thing, and it’s quickly become apparent that MS is irrelevent in that whole area. You want to talk money? MS no longer generates “several times” the profit of Apple. There’s still a gap, but at this point it’s almost closed. As for whatever money they’ve got on their balance sheet, I feel sorry for it. It’s destiny is more likely than not to be wasted on the emperor’s new clothes.
If MS experience is any indication, it should tell everyone that you can’t build an empire atop theft, lies, and arm-twisting and have said empire last forever. Eventully the momentum dissipates. People realize your products are crap you’ve been foisting on them. The party ends.
The only way Apple could ever fall to the same fate is far down the line, after Steve Jobs dies, his handpicked successor dies, his handpicked successor’s handpicked successor dies, etc. and so on until all of the original ideology has has been diluted entirely and some Gates-ian crook with dreams of world conquest lands into the position of CEO. Possible? Sure. In our lifetime? Not even close.
You are aware of the fact that Apple has already crashed and burned completely, right?
You do know that it was Microsoft who put Apple back on their feet, right?
Of course you didn’t, you’re experience with electronic devices probably started with an ipod nano.
By the way, the top 3 most succesful operating systems ever produced are all Microsoft products. Windows 7 enjoyed one of the most successful launches in OS history.
The only thing Apple has going for them is the army of drones like this idiot:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AppleSoldier?feature=chclk
But it appears that you are not aware that the so-called “investment” by Microsoft in Apple was actually the behind the scenes settlement of a lawsuit. It is a complete fabrication that Microsoft saved Apple. Even if you’ve been around for a long time, it seems you still need to do some research. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-microsoft-saved-apple/7036
Leave it to MDN to crystalize my thoughts exactly.
Don’t hold back, MDN, tell us how you really feel!
Wasn’t MORE IS BETTER the exact thing Microsoft used to use for saying why Windows was better than Mac? That Windows had hundreds of thousands of programs?
I have yet to see ONE Windows 7 phone. I have seen a lot of Android phones, but they seem to lack the polish of Apple’s iPhone
EXACTLY!
For nearly 20 years.
But now it’s all about the “Tiles” for smart phone user experience or so I thought. If that were true MS, then why ‘Trumpet’ a paltry 11,500 “quality” apps in you app stor… er marketplace?!
My brother was visiting this weekend.His PC recognized my wifi network and I gave them the key and it just worked. He plugged my HP desktop printer into his Windows laptop – automatically it recognized the hdwr and downloaded the drivers off the net, installed them, made his default printer my printer, and printed out his plane ticket. This took 30 seconds max.
The fact that he can do this was pretty amazing.
Apple does a great job in their closed world of interdependent hardware and software. But if their was not a Windows OS would there have been Dell, HP, Compaq, Lenovo/IBM, …? The Windows model seems to have raised many ships – not just one
You have no clue what you’re talking about. Osx is based off of linux while microsoft codes their entire OS. The Xbox 360 was a latecomer in the gaming market but so was the playstation (and it makes more money than the playstation). Zune is a software and hardware which both got better reviews then the ipod and itunes. Macs are the biggest pieces of trash computers on the market and their sales reflect this. And the ipad is a useless machine which microsoft has been making likenesses of since 2001. The kinect wasn’t “stolen” from nintendo it was a response to nintendo (one uses a controller the other doesn’t).
How about all that money Apple saved on developing Exchange and the just incorporated into Mac OS X and iOS?
How about all that money Apple saved on developing a file transfer protocol then just incorporated the Windows system (dumping Samba, which they didn’t develop either).
How about all that money Apple saved using the UC Berkley flavor of Unix rather than writing their own stuff.
How about all that money Apple saved …
I could go on, but the point is that it is a lousy comparison. Good fotter for the blind followers though.
What ever “fotter” is….
Glad that’s all you could find with which to counter my points.
Blind followers unite! Oh yeah, that’s what MDN is for.
I’d try to counter your points if I could figure out what they were.
Apple saves money and apparently that’s bad or something? What the hell? I don’t see how your comment even relates to MDN’s take. Empty, meaningless words indeed.
The article claimed Apple is so great because it spends so much less on R&D. If u need help reading, my point is that they spend less because they use other people’s technology. Let me know if u need any more help.
Wow DrDudeTx. You really don’t know much about Microsoft’s R&D do you.
Microsoft didn’t develop Exchange, they bought it.
Microsoft didn’t develop Viso, they bought it.
Microsoft didn’t develop SQL Server, they bought it.
In the case of Windows, they did develop it, by copying Apple’s IP. It became successful, because at the same time, they stopped development of CPM for IBM as IBM made the mistake of giving MS the contract to develop it for them without putting a good contract in place. Virtually every thing MS has done has been done by either stealing others ideas, or buying up companies that have come up with great ideas/technology, then bastardizing it.
LOL
Not much of a point really and not exactly factual. Yes, Apple does license some technology, but so does MS. Apple does use a lot of open source software, but they also contribute back. Apple does buy many small companies for new technology, but so does MS.
The fact is, Apple spends less on R&D because they are more focused. It is a well known fact when Steve Jobs came back to Apple one of the first things he did was slash many R&D projects.
Wow DrDudeTx. You really don’t know much about Microsoft’s R&D do you.
Microsoft didn’t develop Exchange, they bought it.
Microsoft didn’t develop Viso, they bought it.
Microsoft didn’t develop SQL Server, they bought it. I can go on and on.
In the case of Windows, they did develop it, they copied Apple’s IP. It became successful, because at the same time, they stopped development of CPM for IBM as IBM made the mistake of giving MS the contract to develop it for them without putting a good contract in place. Virtually every thing MS has done has been done by either stealing others ideas, or buying up companies that have come up with great ideas/technology, then bastardizing it.
DudeTx, show us in the article where there was any mention of Apple and R&D expenditures. What I took away from the article is, Microsoft is accusing Apple of inflating the numbers of Apps they have available and that the approval process for apps is so much better at Microsoft.
I think you’re a little confused and are reading too much into the article.
Wrong. The point MDN is getting at isn’t that Apple is so great because it spends less on R&D, the point is that Microsoft is so stunningly incompetent that it’s got 8 times Apple’s R&D budget and nothing to show for it besides a number of successess I can count on one hand.
And even these few successes are derivative, uninspired trainwrecks of broken user interfaces, atrocious programming, hardware failures, or all of the above.
As for your “point”, oh my god, thanks for the laugh. Microsoft’s entire modus operandi revolves around exactly two things: IP theft, and using other people’s technology. Everything from Internet Explorer to Kinect (to Exchange, as rossco pointed out) started out life as another company’s product.
Even with Darwin, even with all of the opensource components in OS X, Apple can’t even begin to match Microsoft in its use of other people’s technology. And yet MS still has 8 times the R&D budget.
You == fail.
Also you’re a liar, iOS doesn’t spellcheck the way you’re claiming it spellchecks. So your iPhone is of the imaginary kind. Troll much?
fodder
Wow, just wow.
It is telling just how clueless ms fanboys have become… I guess as the brighter ones ones abandon the (lost) cause, the median dips ever lower.
These are mostly Microsoft-centric examples. Apple users don’t need Exchange – only to communicate with Windows users, ditto on the ftp as we have our own, so why not just licence it. If you think OSX is simply UC Berkley flavour UNIX, then you’ve obviously been drinking to much ‘fotter’.
“Apple users don’t need Exchange”. Are you serious? This just shows how deeply your head is burried in the sand. U should have remained quiet rather than proving your utter ignorance. Enjoy your little fantasy world.
what is Burried? go back to school troll!!!
Surprised you didn’t use “udder”
Perfect, hope you feel good about your position as spelling czar here at MDN. Maybe someday you could move from your Mom’s basement.
serrriiioouusslly dduddeere…. speul cke iz ur freeeinnndd….
Yeah Jimmy, that’s what all that Apple R&D gets me on this iPhone and it’s “speul cke”. Must be nice to live at mommy’s house at 43 and spend the day posting here. How’s that workin for ya?
First of all it’s “fodder” not “fotter”.
Anyway, here is what you are missing: When NeXt was purchased by Apple, the unix kernel was already part of the operating system. So let’s say we start at about the year 2000, both Microsoft and Apple are not building from the ground up anymore. The R&D figures mentioned above are for the past decade and MS is out-spending Apple 8 to 1. But here is the big issue, while MS is primarily spending their R&D money on developing software, Apple is doing all of that plus developing amazing amounts of hardware as well. Also not mentioned is the research and development of materials like glass, alloys, and battery chemistry. Also not mentioned is research into new manufacturing techniques like machined aluminum laptop cases. Oh and don’t forget processor chip development. So I think it is clear that Apple gets way more out of their R&D dollars than MS. In fact, in comparison, MS is just spinning their wheels and not getting traction.
Apple bought NeXT for $400+ million. And although NeXT did incorporate some of the UC Berkley UNIX it also has a fuck ton of new parts that were created by NeXT and later add more on by Apple.
As for Exchange, Apple may have licensed it but they still had to implement it and they did that seamlessly.
Apple does have a history of incorporating other Open Standards (like Samba) into their OS but that doesn’t just happen. You don’t just take a bunch of standards and hold them next to each other. You have to program that all in so it works well together. Thats all just software too, they also had to develop the hardware to go with it. Apple uses it’s R&D budget better.
This is such a biased article it’s not even funny. The writer is clearly an Apple fanboy with a fear of Microsoft, all Apple fanboys have it. Can you not admit that Microsoft really has something here? Windows Phone 7 is a genuinely original and SEXY mobile OS with just about all of the features of other smartphones. It’s only in its infancy so why should we expect multi-tasking, copy/paste, Flash, etc. when it took Apple quite a while to get these very things for their iPhone (except for flash which Microsoft WILL get and Apple will NOT)? Windows Phone Marketplace is growing fast, and I haven’t found many (if ANY) apps that fell below my standards. Maybe the writer of this article should consider the fact that OTHER phone OS’s are viable alternatives to the iPhone, and in fact WP7 is projected to surpass the iPhone by 2015. Surprised? I’m not.
Exchange support was specifically supported because of enterprise request. It is a proprietary technology, you can’t just develop it.
Apple has their own file service protocols, Samba was used for windows compatibility and was actually an open source implementation. They recently dumped Samba in favor of writing their own in order to support more modern features that Samba could not.
Apple spent, not saved, $400 million for NeXT to get that BSD based Unix OS.
So your examples of Apple saving money by not needing to increase R&D spending are fairly lame at best.
Feel free to list any others. However, try and keep it within the last decade as the article stated.
The point is that Apple’s R&D yields more actual successful products than Microsoft’s when you consider the amount each spends. I’m sure Microsoft’s R&D is much, much broader than Apple’s, but not much ever comes of it.
Well,
I just checked and found 34 ‘Fart’ applications. Microsoft is sure ‘Trumpetting’ its QUALITY!
wp7applist.com/
“Zune, Kin, Bing” Man, that’s some kind of perverse onomatopoeia!
So what this guy is saying is that its an advantage to have very few apps to approve? I guess they feel the same way about the relative lack of people visiting their stores too then.
And yet, so many are still loyal to Microsoft. I believe that the Microsoft Syndrome is a subset of the bigger Stockholm Syndrome. When people finally turn from the Dark Side, they are blown away with the genuine simplicity of true ingenuity!
This battle is over. Apple dominates the younger half of the population. Not sure about this. Visit your local college and see what logo they are using.
People are loyal to Microsoft because anyone serious about computer technology uses windows or linux. You can play serious gaming on windows and the xbox 360. You can get a fast computer that runs the operating system (just try and beat the i7 processor… oh yeah, you can’t…). And as for logo’s… you sound like a trendy idiot, i don’t know one kid who wears an apple t-shirt or brags about apple in any way. Their software is failure at best, and their policy of DRM and trying to prevent “product tampering” is disgusting. They actually use special screws on their devices so you can’t take apart the product. They also don’t let you go into the registry or .dll library files. Macs and apple products are for idiots who don’t know anything more then what pop culture tells them. So you say they’re for creative people when i could literally do 10x the amount on my pc for almost no price. Now I have to get back to checking the daily tech news and maybe see if there is a spam filter for search results that block out useless articles like this one.
– “Serious gaming”? LOL
– You can get Macs with i7 processors, so not sure what your point is there.
– OS X doesn’t have a registry, and that’s a good thing!
– OS X is based on BSD *nix. Yes, I can see how that’s so weak and for idiots, definitely.
– Why are you so afraid and hateful? Just use whatever works best for you, but don’t spread lies and ignorant comments about subjects you know nothing about. It makes no sense.
“x-year anniversary” has always been a pet peeve of mine. “Year” is conveniently built into the word “anniversary” so it needn’t be repeated. 1st anniversary, 2nd anniversary, etc.
Microsoft touting quality over quantity is hilarious.
Sorta like “ATM machine” and “PIN number”…
and “crack cocaine”
or MSDS sheet 🙂
All I’ve got to say to Microsoft’s announcement is this:
Ballmer the man!
I wonder what kind of drugs makes a grown man act like that.
May he run Microsoft forever.
Did you see him huffing and puffing at the end? You think with all that money, he could hire a decent personal trainer.
I can never get enough of that video! It so brilliantly sums up the whole MS culture.
You mean Microsoft’s excitement for its developers? Or should he be wearing jeans and a black shirt?
Hey that’s not nice! it’s a white turtle neck with an apple logo and white khaki’s…
You forgot iPad in your list MDN.
Wait- is MSOFT now claiming they actually curate their store? Or just that the 11,000 apps they’ve managed so far just all happen to be top quality? Dubious.
Sounds like Microsoft has run out of competent execs.
One of these days! Zune! Kin! Bing! One of these days Microsoft, straight to the Moon!
@DrDudeTx
It’s “fodder”. A Doctor ought to know that.
Maybe Apple should have spent some more R&D money on the iOS spell check! Bet this wouldn’t happen with a WP7!
Actually douche’ hole, when I type “fotter” is comes up as fitter in both my email and messages…
HAH “douche’ hole”, that made me giggle.
That’s what she said
Another fail.
So you’re saying you spelled it correctly and iOS changed it? STFU. You’re embarrassing to the whole state of Texas. A doctor might know how to spell “buried” as well.
fodder is in the iOS dictionary. You do know how to hover the mouse and check the dictionary right? Ctrl-cmd-shft-D
Ok Einstein, since when did iOS devices support mouse? You blind followers just keep making yourselves look foolish.
OMG! What an insane thread when all people have to say is how somebody misspelled “fodder.” This is ridiculous, people,we all make mistakes, even with spelling checker’s its a fact of like. (mistakes intentional).
DrDude, just ignore those people who can’t refute your opinion so they pick on a simple spelling error. Sheesh!
He spelled buried wrong too. Others have refuted his arguments. But we probably shouldn’t pile on a guy in his mom’s basement.
Don’t forget Vista.
Funny how the arguments have changed….
When Mac users would argue that having fewer programs on OSX wasnt a problem because of the quality of the programs on average was so much better than on Windows, the Windows fanboys (and MS themselves) would talk about how that was hogwash and that quantity trumped quality.
Now the shoe is on the other foot and suddenly that argument holds water.
Microsoft’s argument would would be true if the apps in their app store were better. The WP7 apps aren’t better. Back when people made those claims about OS X and previous Mac OS’s it was true, we had much better applications. Now iOS has more and they’re better.
i am so damn tired of reading the word “SLAM” or “BLAST” in news articles, used to inflame and draw attention to what amounts to an insult or a dis.
Journalists, find a new cliche.
Don’t worry, this is not really news and there are no journalists in sight.
I wonder how many of those WP7 apps are optimized for tablets…oh wait, Microsoft won’t have a tablet OS until 2012 at the earliest, although first they have to believe that tablets are for real, even though they claimed 2010 was the year of the tablet, which it was for Apple.
Ok, well still it’s pretty impressive that they have that many developers. This could be the first time a platform has more developers than users. Why not tell us how many sales you have Microsoft? And by sales, we mean units sold and activated by end using customers, not shipments to shelves.
11,500 Apps, one for each Windoze 7 phone sold?
He’s preaching to his existing user base. 90% of the coulees planet and IT/CIO drones. He knows he sounds like a complete delusional idiot. Then again he’s preaching to same group. lol
Microsoft, 11,500, Windows Phone ’07
My first thought was this is the number of Winblows Phones they sold in the first year – could still be true.
poor MS. when you got a lemon of an app store, you gotta sell lemonade.
Microsoft is full of dummies.
“More software is better” when comparing Mac/Win.
“Less software is better” when Microsoft is BADLY losing the count.
I’d choose Android before Windows. I might even choose WebOS before Android. Microsoft, your time is over…
http://taketotask.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/when-microsoft-cant-steal-copy-or-get-there-first-its-management-become-whiny-babies/