This came out a week ago, but I think it’s worth noting for those who missed it. There’s a piece in Business Insider based on an interesting fact first noted by MG Siegler. It’s this:
Apple’s iPhone business is bigger than Microsoft
Note, not Microsoft’s phone business. Not Windows. Not Office. But Microsoft’s entire business. Gosh.
As the article puts it:
The iPhone did not exist five years ago. And now it’s bigger than a company that, 15 years ago, was dragged into court and threatened with forcible break-up because it had amassed an unassailable and unthinkably profitable monopoly.
My name is Ozzie-mandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair…
Bigger than Microsoft, and yet not a monopoly.
It’s not size that matters, it’s what you do with it 🙂
Yeah, Steve Jobs is dead. And he took the price of it. What’s the use of amassing wealth when you’re dead. At least Gates is giving his money to charity.
“and yet not a monopoly”, true, with some other smartphone companies around, and still bigger than Microsoft. What it really tells us is how huge the smartphone market is: apparently much bigger than the total OS/Office market of 15 years ago, as Microsoft had a monopoly back then.