{"id":308903,"date":"2010-02-11T10:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T15:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:394675"},"modified":"2010-02-11T10:55:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T15:55:00","slug":"is-apple-getting-too-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/308903","title":{"rendered":"Is Apple getting too big?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every hipster knows that Apple Inc. is the nimble little perfectionist, while Microsoft Corp. is the evil empire and IBM Corp. is the lumbering dinosaur. That\u2019s the way things have always been. Well, until recently.<\/p>\n

Bespoke Investment Group points out that Apple\u2019s market cap<\/a> was only about a tenth of the size of Microsoft\u2019s or IBM\u2019s back in 2000. Since then, though, Apple\u2019s share price has bulged to elephantine proportions. Apple\u2019s market cap is now about 71% as large as Microsoft\u2019s and US$17 billion bigger than IBM\u2019s. (Maybe we should start calling IBM \u201cLittle Blue\u201d.)<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s increasing size raises questions about how long it can continue to grow its revenue and profit at the rapid clip it\u2019s enjoyed over the past few years. One big danger is that it will start thinking more like a big company and become obsessed by its internal needs rather than by consumer desires. <\/p>\n

Holman Jenkins Jr. of the Wall Street Journal argues that Apple is showing every sign of becoming more and more like Microsoft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One piece of evidence is the iPad, a disappointing device that seems designed mostly to boost sales at Apple\u2019s iTunes store. Another piece of evidence is Apple\u2019s decision to exclude Flash, a piece of software that would allow iPhone and iPad users to consume video without going through iTunes. <\/p>\n

Jenkins warns that Apple may soon become a company \u201cthat rolls out increasingly junky devices merely to lock more and more customers into the iTunes-App Store mall.\u201d His warning sounds a mite premature, but it would be reassuring to see Apple respond to the criticism with stronger new products\u2014especially ones that don\u2019t involve peddling iTunes merchandise.<\/p>\n

Freelance business journalist Ian McGugan blogs for the Financial Post.<\/i>  <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every hipster knows that Apple Inc. is the nimble little perfectionist, while Microsoft Corp. is the evil empire and IBM Corp. is the lumbering dinosaur. That\u2019s the way things have always been. Well, until recently. Bespoke Investment Group points out that Apple\u2019s market cap was only about a tenth of the size of Microsoft\u2019s or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}