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Should Apple Open Source the iPhone?
An anonymous reader writes "Given the OpeniBoot project is just a breath away from getting Android onto the iPhone, maybe Apple should consider opening up the platform. This post has five reasons, but I think there are far more. Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
How are those good points?
Apple has a history of pulling bait and switch tactics, often being more locked down than Microsoft is in many areas etc.
Look what you can do with a TiVo, that's supposively running on OpenSource software, you can't run your own software on the TiVo usually because it checks if the kernel running etc. is signed by a specific key.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
AAPL cap $86 Billion
GOOG cap $97 Billion
MSFT cap $182 Billion
Sounds good to me. I hope AAPL has twice the value of the rest of the pack.
Really? For a complete selling infrastructure including payment processing?
Kagi charges like 16%*, and that's just for payment processing -- you still have to do your own distribution and installation. I'm not saying 30% is cheap, but it's hardly unreasonable.
* Kagi has flat fees, percentage fees, and both flat and percentage credit-card fees, so the exact amount varies from order to order. Given a $10 credit-card order it comes out to about 16%.
Number abuse! 2 minute minor!
Seriously. Talking about their stock price right now is an extremely dishonest way to look at it, and saying they are "ratcheting downward" seems to be totally ignoring the size of the rate.
They've lost... 1.9 points from their marketshare in the last 10 months (oh, the horrors!) and are down *only* 44% from their 52-week high. SPY is down 41% from their 52-week high. FCX (to pick a random stock) is down 82% from their 52 week high. Citigroup is down 77% and Apple is down 48%.
Given the rest of the market, MSFT is doing just fine right now.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Plus you'll probably want an iPhone, which is not cheap.
But compare that to other perfectly successful mobile platforms like Windows Mobile, which requires that you buy a Lenovo-compatible PC, MS Windows, and MS Visual Studio. Even assuming you get a cheap CPU bundled with Windows it wouldn't be hard to get to $700. Plus the phone of course. And for Windows Mobile code signing is $300+ per app.
I'm not saying cheaper wouldn't be better, but people are already making good money selling apps that are way more expensive to develop.
Not to be contentious, but you might want to review your statements before posting.
Dell market cap on 12/10/2008: $23.41 billion.
Apple cash in the bank at quarter ending Sep 08: $24.49 billion.
Apple could write a check for Dell and have a billion dollars left over. If they aren't competing with Dell, it's not because of a lack of money.