Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

Internet Explorer Loses 11.4 Percent Share to Firefox, Safari, and Chrome

From Seekingalph.com

by: Erick Schonfeld 

Erick Schonfeld

from techcruch.com

The new browser wars are on. More than a decade after Microsoft (MSFT) killed off Netscape with Internet Explorer, competition in the browser market has never been stronger. Just last week, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5, which has now been downloaded nearly 14 million times. Earlier in June, Apple (AAPL) released Safari 4. In March, Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer 8, and Google (GOOG) came out with a speedier beta of its Chrome browser.

Some early data is coming in showing relative market share and how fast people are upgrading. If you look at the chart above from Statcounter, it indicates that since March Internet Explorer has lost 11.4 percent market share to other browsers. That is the combined market share of IE8, IE7, and IE6. Certainly IE8 (the light blue line) has been growing strong since its release last March, capturing 16.7 percent of the market as of July 4. Those strong gains make up for most of the drop in IE7’s market share from 49.1 percent in March to 30.1 percent yesterday, indicating that Microsoft is doing a good job of getting existing IE7 users to upgrade at a steady pace. And in mid-June, IE8 finally surpassed IE6, which still stubbornly holds a 7.6 percent share. Add those three up, (IE6+IE7+IE8), however, and IE all together holds only a 54.4 percent market share versus the 65.8 percent combined share in March, 2009.

In just over three months, Internet Explorer has seen its overall market share erode by 11.4 percent. Where did that go? It went to Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Nearly 5 percent of that, or about half, went to Firefox 3.0, which currently has 27.6 percent market share. That doesn’t count last week’s upgrade. See the dotted line just below the light blue IE8 line? That is a combined set of “other” browsers and appears to include Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 2.0.

If you look at a 30-day version of that same chart, it shows Safari 4 with 4 percent market share and Chrome with 3 percent market share. It doesn’t yet break out Firefox 3.5, but if you assume that makes up the bulk of the remaining dotted line which jumped to nearly pass IE6 in the past week, you can figure out more or less which browsers are taking share from Microsoft. (I’ve used data from the most recent daily chart in this post, but embedded the monthly chart below which has data as of June 30).

As I said, this is early data from one source. Net Applications, another commonly cited source for browser market share, is currently reviewing its June numbers, but I have a feeling they will show similar trends. (This Wikipedia page shows other browser market share sources, most of them haven’t been updated since March). It is difficult to make any firm conclusions at this point, since market share is shifting so rapidly as every major (and minor) browser tries to convince users to upgrade.

But we are in the midst of a major upgrade cycle simultaneously across IE, FireFox, and Safari (with the Chrome wild card thrown in). When all is said and done, we might see a major shake-up in market share and almost definitely will see leadership pass from IE7 to another browser. The question is will that be IE8 or Firefox? Whichever one wins, the good news is that IE6 is finally dying.

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Is Apple Planning To Buy Adobe? Posted: 03 May 2008 11:05 AM CDT Cringely thinks recetn activity by Apple -- apparently shopping around its professional editing applications business -- means that Jobs wants to buy Adobe: [from Iron Man] [...] The major point here is that Adobe is in play, or at least Apple thinks so. The company has plenty of cash and stock to do the deal and plenty of incentive, too. Apple's goal in acquiring Adobe would be to control first Flash and second Adobe's emerging Air application platform. Adobe announced this week a broad industry initiative to extend Flash to mobile devices, but Apple wasn't a participant. Why bother if you intend to shortly own Flash outright? Owning Flash and merging it with QuickTime would give Apple near-total dominance of Internet video, furthering the advantages of iTunes and shoring up in the process the iPod franchise. They'd be giving up a sports car in Final Cut Pro, but end up effectively owning the road instead. And Cringley doesn't touch on the possible future of Flash on mobile devices, which lines up with Apples iPhone plans, as well. Interesting to have an Apple outpost on 99% of the connected PCs in the world, too. Get iChat running in the Flash player, and voila, the leading IM network in the world, too.

Starbucks remembers they make coffee, step back from being music label

http://www.prefixmag.com/news/starbucks-remembers-they-make-coffee-step-back-fro/18340/

by Patrick Hipp

In a press release on their website, Starbucks has announced that they're handing over control of their Hear Me music label to Concord Music Group. Quoth the CEO, Howard Schultz: “As part of our ongoing transformation, we are committed to examining all aspects of our business that are not directly related to our core.” For those keeping score, Starbucks' "transformation" involves the company transforming back into a coffee shop, although this time without the burnt coffee. Following this move, Ken Lombard--the now former head of Starbucks Entertainment--has "has left the company to pursue other business interests." As Brooklyn Vegan points out, this announcement comes admist news that Starbucks stock is starting to stagnate with the rest of the economy, so he probably wasn't given much choice. 

Motorola’s Loss Is Apple’s Gain: That $2.1 Billion Sucking Sound Is Coming From The iPhone

from techcrunch.com

Razr anyone? Motorola can’t even give those things away anymore. The once-proud company reported horrible earnings today, with sales down 21 percent and a net loss of $194 million. But the big takeaway was the 39 percent collapse in its mobile phone business. Mobile device revenues in the quarter dropped $2.1 billion compared to last year.

Coincidentally enough, that is almost exactly how much Apple made last quarter on iPhone sales. The figure came to $2.3 billion (including lumped-in sales of Apple TVs, which likely made up less than $100 million of that total). During yesterday’s earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer spelled this out:

We sold 1.7 million iPhones during the March quarter . . .. Total revenue recognized during the quarter from sales of iPhone, iPhone accessories, and payments from carriers was $378 million. Total deferred revenue from iPhone and Apple TV was $1.93 billion at the end of the March quarter.

Add those together and you get $2.3 billion. That deferred revenue he is talking about is what Apple collects from its share of monthly subscription fees from AT&T and other carriers partners—an arrangement that Motorola has never been able to negotiate for its phones. So not only has the iPhone replaced Motorola-class phones as the mobile device of choice among consumers, but Apple is also replacing Motorola’s business model by tapping into that rich vein of monthly subscription fees: An arrangement, by the way, that has been as good for AT&T as it has been for Apple.

iPhone: Surfs Great, Does Calls Too

Paul Kedrosky Infectuous Greed

Posted: 18 Apr 2008 04:33 PM CDT

Fascinating data out from iSuppli on iPhone usage compared to the average phone for typical tasks. Some eye-opening differences:

The big differences? Internet use -- no surprise -- and music use, where iPhone is used much more often than other devices. On the other side, hard not to wonder if people aren't noticing that the iPhone, is you know, a phone. (I'm kidding, of course -- these are percentages, not actual time allocations, but the differences are striking.)

How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong

By Leander Kahney
Wired Magazine click here for more.

One Infinite Loop, Apple's street address, is a programming in-joke — it refers to a routine that never ends. But it is also an apt description of the travails of parking at the Cupertino, California, campus. Like most things in Silicon Valley, Apple's lots are egalitarian; there are no reserved spots for managers or higher-ups. Even if you're a Porsche-driving senior executive, if you arrive after 10 am, you should be prepared to circle the lot endlessly, hunting for a space.

But there is one Mercedes that doesn't need to search for very long, and it belongs to Steve Jobs. If there's no easy-to-find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space. (Sometimes he takes up two spaces.) It's become a piece of Apple lore — and a running gag at the company. Employees have stuck notes under his windshield wiper: "Park Different." They have also converted the minimalist wheelchair symbol on the pavement into a Mercedes logo.

 

Morgan Stanley: 40% of college students plan to buy Macs

By AppleInsider Staff

Apple's rapidly rising mindshare amongst current generation college students is setting the company up for an "aging phenomenon" that will spur further market share and revenue growth as those students enter the work force, investment bank Morgan Stanley said Wednesday.

A recent higher-education survey cited by analyst Katy Huberty reveals that roughly 40 percent of college students say their next computer purchase will be a Mac, well ahead of Apple's current 15 percent market share in the demographic.

In the near term, this sets the Cupertino-based Mac maker up for a strong September quarter -- a three-month period that embodies the heart of the back-to-school buying season, where incoming freshmen, existing undergraduates, and universities all plunk down considerable sums of cash in order to invest in computer hardware for the coming school year.

"Longer term," Huberty said, "we see an 'aging phenomenon' that will put Apple in a more mainstream market share position as students enter the work force, much like Linux adoption in the 1998-2003 time frame."

She noted that as the Linux platform matured and developers entered the workforce, enterprise-level Linux adoption accelerated eightfold, with 16 percent of servers shipped in 2003 running flavors of the linux operating systems compared to just 2 percent five years earlier.

For Apple, which holds just shy of 3 percent worldwide share of the personal computer market, each incremental percentage point of share gain means billions, Huberty said; approximately 6 billion in yearly revenues, and a full dollar in per share earnings for investors.

The analyst maintained her Overweight rating on shares of Apple, with a $185 per-share Base Case scenario that assumes Mac unit share rises to 3.5 percent from 2.9 percent in the next 12 months, and that consumers continue to buy up into the Mac product family, providing the company with some gross margin leverage.

Huberty also outline a $225 per-share Bull Case scenario which assumes twice the operating margin expansion of her Base Case scenario for the 2008 calendar year, driven by 40 percent revenue growth from broader demand for mobile products and greater success in the international and enterprise markets.

Apple Trying To Sneak Safari Onto Windows Machines?

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techdirt.com

by Timothy Lee from the nobody-here-but-us-safaris

 

Last week, Apple apparently began distributing its Safari web browser to Windows users using the software update mechanism that comes with iTunes. This has generated a firestorm of controversy, notably from Mozilla CEO John Lilly, who says Apple's behavior undermines users' trust in the software update process. He's got a point. What Apple is doing here is a little bit sleazy. Users who opt to download iTunes aren't necessarily interested in installing or running Safari, and so making installation the default is an abuse of the relationship between Apple and its customers. On the other hand, I think it's important to make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with Apple using its installed base of iTunes users to help promote Safari. The issue here is that the opt-out mechanism it's chosen is somewhat misleading. Apple can fix the problem very easily by switching the default, so that Safari is unchecked until the user chooses to check it. Or, if Apple wants to be a little more aggressive, a pop-up window could require the user to make a yes or no choice on installing Safari. If the user clicks "no," the update mechanism should respect this choice and not bring it up again. The problem, in other words, is not that Apple is using the popularity of iTunes to promote another of its products. The problem is that it's not being as transparent as it could be with its users.

What to Expect from the Open iPhone

click here for more from techlogyreview.com

Freed to design software for the iPhone, programmers outside Apple plan to revolutionize the handheld.

With its easy-to-use touch screen and slick software--including Apple's iTunes--the iPhone is the darling of the cell-phone industry. And last week, Apple made an announcement that only enhances the phone's appeal. The Cupertino, CA, company unveiled a set of new features for the phone that allow it to work well with business software, including e-mail and data-synching software. And crucially, the company released the instructions for the iPhone's hardware, offering a software development kit (SDK) that lets programmers outside Apple peek inside the gadget and write their own applications for it.

Knowledge Nuggets from Steve Jobs

Fortune.com

The March 17th issue of Fortune magazine has a "Good Steve | Bad Steve" take on Steve Jobs. The Good Steve article has chewy knowledge nuggets from him on being innovative, connecting with consumers, staying focused, managing people, and hiring talented people. Good stuff.

on being innovative…
"You can't ask people what they want if it's around the next corner," says Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO and cofounder. At Apple, new-product development starts in the gut and gets hatched in rolling conversations that go something like this: What do we hate? (Our cellphones.) What do we have the technology to make? (A cellphone with a Mac inside.) What would we like to own? (You guessed it, an iPhone.) "One of the keys to Apple is that we build products that really turn us on," says Jobs.

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on connecting with consumers…
"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do.” [MORE]

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on staying focused…
”People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve go to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” [MORE]

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on managing people…
“We've got 25,000 people at Apple. About 10,000 of them are in the stores. And my job is to work with sort of the top 100 people, that's what I do. So when a good idea comes … part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people.” [MORE]

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on hiring talented people…
"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They'll want to do what's best for Apple, not what's best for them.” [MORE]