My guess is that only Apple knows why it changed the rules, but that anyone who can do a Google search can (a) read up on what antitrust means and (b) observe Apple's non-commanding share of the mobile market.
True, but we're starting to live in a slightly weird world where once you buy a particular product which is a gateway to other products and services, the manufacturer is dictating in a very megalomaniac way on how you spend your money. And commanding huge sums from utterly controlling that marketplace. Like the XBox and iPhone.
They may have a non-commanding share of mobiles, but they have a total monopoly on iPhone apps.
Under that theory of law, every platform company in the world is subject to antitrust suits as the "monopoly provider of access to that platform". Twitter could be sued. 37signals could be sued.
Fortunately, this simply isn't how antitrust law works.
What theory of law? Notice the words 'weird' and 'starting to live', I am saying that this is new territory and as such the law hasn't even been tested yet. It may even result in new legislation.
There is a huge gap between the monopolistic marketplaces that Apple and MS have setup and service providers like Twitter or 37signals who give api keys to anyone who asks.
And why fortunately? Do you like having your freedoms curtailed? Do you like being vastly overcharged for things you know would be a lot less if competition was allowed?
Microsoft's monopoly was only on Windows, which just happened to be the only viable option for most PC OEMs and browser developers.
If owning 99.4% of the mobile app sales market (Gartner figure for 2009) and imposing restrictions which hinder the development of cross-platform apps doesn't deserve antitrust scrutiny, I'm really not sure what does.
No, it was the only option for most PC OEMs, because Microsoft adopted anticompetitive licensing practices that explicitly punished OEMs financially for distributing anything but Windows with prominently-placed IE.
Apple cannot control 99.4% of the mobile app market, regardless of what their current revenue share is, because they still control less than 30% of the market for app platforms. If Apple attempted to abuse their position in the market to the detriment of customers, customers would switch to other phones, which is easy because there are multiple vendors with approximately the same or greater market penetration.
There is just no way to get around the fact that Apple does not control the mobile app market (yet). Coming up with the market model that maximizes revenue and one random Gartner stat does not make them a monopoly. Read the document I posted earlier; it's written for laypeople.
Think of it this way: imagine Apple invented 3D animated wallpaper technology, and allowed people to create and sell wallpapers in a special wallpaper store. A year later, Samsung releases a phone that also has a 3D animated wallpaper store. By your logic, Apple would have nearly 100% share of the 3D animated wallpaper market, and would be subject to antitrust regulation.
OEMs wanting to offer a non-IE default browser had the unattractive options of switching Linux or incurring the financial penalties; iPhone developers barred from using "cross platform" tools had the unattractive option of switching to platforms that have shown relatively little potential to generate revenue or higher development costs.
Because of their store cornering the market for paid apps, Apple is in the enviable position of being potentially able to reduce development on their competitors' platforms, thereby making customers less likely to switch as well as worse off overall. Irrespective of the letter of US antitrust law, that is something I feel _ought_ to be kept under scrutiny.
Read the intro to section 2, then skip to section 2 and read the first couple pages.
Long story short: the acid test for "monopoly power" is, "if Apple jacked the prices up on iPhones, would its customers be unable to acquire reasonable substitutes." Since Apple has something less than 30% of the smart-phone market (note: that same DoJ doc says that market shares under 55% are probably prima facie excluded from antitrust enforcement), it's unreasonable to argue that consumers have no substitutes for iPhones.
Apple also has a huge share of games involving catapulting birds and falling refrigerators and cars, but, well, read above.
There is another store for which normal people can buy software for iOS devices?
"would its customers be unable to acquire reasonable substitutes."
If you look at the class "iOS software" which is only legitimately sold by one vendor, the very definition of a monopoly. If Apple raised the price of all iPhone apps to 200k tomorrow, there would be no reasonable substitute for software for the device.
They do not have a monopoly of "mobile phones", they have a monopoly on "iOS software". Which is all sold by them (nonwithstanding tiny jailbroken stores). They do not have a monopoly on "Games about birds", as you can develop a substitute for that on other platforms which they do not control. You cannot however say they do not have a monopoly on the distribution of games about birds which run on iOS devices, because they clearly do.
As iOS software makes up 85% or more of all paid sales, this IS a legitimate issue for Anti-trust legal system, at least good enough to get in front of a judge.
You are hopping between two arguments to avoid having to deal with the weaknesses of either of them.
On the one hand, you point out that Apple has a 100% monopoly on iOS applications. Of course, Twitter also has a 100% monopoly on Twitter apps. Surely nobody thinks Twitter has a monopoly.
On the other hand, you point to profit share in the wider market of smartphone apps. But of course the problem there is that Apple has less than 30% of the market for smart phones, and so clearly can't monopolize the market for smartphone apps.
I'm not hopping between 2 arguments, I'm explaining how they meet the 55% bar, (85% of all paid app sales for all mobile phones are sold on the Apple AppStore, so they clearly are meeting marketshare requirements if the government wants to prosecute), and how they do actually have pricing power, which is merely responding to your arguments.
So you're saying if Toyota only ran on gas with a certain additive, and 85% of all gas sales were for Toyota cars, the company who had control of the additive wouldn't be possibly considered a monopoly?
The cost of the phone and the contract which locks you into a carrier makes this a much bigger deal then you think it is, and very possibly does give the FTC pause (among restraint of trade arguments as well).
You're trying to argue they're not a monopoly, and I'm saying it's at least close enough that could become a finding of fact for the judge/jury in a court case to decide, which is likely close enough to make the company back off its more onerous behaviors to avoid the expense of that sort of case.
I honestly think the restraint of trade issues are much bigger than the AT ones, but that wasn't what this thread was about.
Too much choice is overwhelming and confusing. This has been observed many times. Search google on "psychology too many choices". http://www.physorg.com/news127404469.html
Not to mention having dozens of models shows a lack of focus.
IT depts don't care about developers getting shit done, they care about covering their asses. I work at a software company that has an IT dept that seems to do anything in it's power to keep work from being done. They do on access virus scanning which increases compile times 5x (which we can't turn off). They banned IM because of "legal issues". They banned itunes because of "legal issues" and "bandwidth issues". Any streaming media is banned because of "bandwidth issues". They installed software that keeps track of everything you install. They set up our (proprietary Nortel) VPN to route everything over their network. Chatrooms like Campfire - banned. SaaS - banned.
Of course I've worked around all these issues, but it's a PITA. I don't buy the legal issue argument as companies like google and msft don't have all these restrictions.
I'd love to know the reality on these legal issues. Is there really a legal reason for a company to ban IM/Chatrooms/iTunes/etc? If so, why is it that Google doesn't?
Many, if not all, of the various restrictions I've seen put into place were done in reaction to a legal problem. IM gets banned because someone leaked a secret. Websites get blocked because of a rash of sexual-harassment lawsuits. On-access virus scanning because on-demand scanning didn't stop the last worm. It goes on and on.
There's a natural friction between developers and infrastructure. Developers consume the limited resources which IT has to manage. I've done plenty of both, and basically, both sides are correct. I recommend working on the "other side of the fence" for a little while to anybody in the industry.
You are absolutely correct. Covering the company's ass is half of IT's job. Providing services is only the other half. It's a tricky balancing act.
Legal problem #1 with IM is logging. In public companies, particularly in regulated industries, anything that has ever been recorded by any employee can and will be used against you, and the discovery will come at your expense. Everything that is said, but NOT logged, will be used as evidence of your malfeasance.
For this reason, E-mail systems are typically centralized, and users are prevented from pulling mail off the server, so that all e-mail can be retained for exactly six months, no more, no less.
With third-party IM services, that can't be done. This is the reason for the rise of highly restrictive internal IM - Lotus Sametime, Microsoft office communicator. With Communicator you can ban both logging AND copy-paste centrally, at the server. It's a terrible tool, but it controls the legal risk quite nicely.
--
Google doesn't worry about this because they have more money than sense. (Also, not a regulated industry.)
The root of the problem is IT has no incentives or checks in place to maintain a reasonable level of productivity. Their only mission is to make sure that services are online and there aren't breaches. Productivity doesn't factor in at all.
I'm not in a regulated industry (enterprise software). I completely get this if it's healthcare or defense. But we are just talking about middleware here!
IT is a cost center. There's constant pressure to contain its headcount and budget.
The costs of providing a high level of service are obvious, but the costs of lousy services are all hidden. As a result, yes, there's usually NO incentive to do anything more than the minimum.
(The minimum, of course, involves the ass-covering.)
If you are in finance or health there can be legal reasons. But I think they are just lazy. Legally, those companies are supposed to log every message or email for a specific amount of time. For you, rather than go about putting the systems in place they would rather not deal with it at all.
The bandwidth issues though I have no idea. Sounds like someone found the shittiest provider in your area and got a cheap deal, or greased palms.
Blackberry's an enterprise product. It's still one of the most reliable workplace phones you can get. iPhone's trying to compete with it, but I think BB's still got the lead.
Android's got nothing unique to it beyond its being open source. It's basically a better Windows Mobile.
