gigaom.com — For a company that manages to debut a new product line every few years that seizes the public's attention worldwide, it is rather amazing to see how little Apple spends on research and development as a percentage of its sales compared to its peers.
Jan 31, 2012 View in Crawl 4
asrrin29Jan 31, 2012
Kind of hard to have original R&D when all of your products are just rip-offs of pre-exisitng technology polished up and painted white.
barackalypseJan 31, 2012
My guess is by having substantially fewer products, which is why I wish they would have also put on the graph the number of products per year or some metric to that extent. Apple really breaks down to just a handful of products and many of them heavily leverage development from other devices.
Consider iOS,: moving from an iPod touch to an iPhone to an iPad leverages a lot of existing R&D compared to someone like Sony who isn't going to be able to re-use technology it built for its clock radio's into its camcorders which have nothing to offer its PS3's which have nothing to offer its e-Reader which offers nothing to its headphones.
cowicideJan 31, 2012
> Apple really breaks down to just a handful of products
Not really, especially once you include software. But, I see your point about leverage.
barackalypseJan 31, 2012
I'm not really aware of a whole lot of Apple software aside from
iOS, OSX, iTunes, Quicktime, iWork, and iLife. Do they really have that much more they're developing?
cowicideFeb 1, 2012
Yes, huge projects including Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Aperture, Logic Pro, etc. and much more.
cowicideJan 31, 2012
Less bloat; More focus
beerhoundJan 31, 2012
Right on target. I read an article a couple of years ago written by a guy who worked at MS. When he started with the company in the Windows 9x days, he could go knock on his bosses door to get a question answered, if the boss didn't know, they would go up to the next level of manager. The dude was only 6 offices away from standing in front of Bill Gates. By the time this worker left MS, there were 13 steps to take to be in the CEO's office. More than double the layers of management. Is it any wonder that MS is slow to the party with almost anything they do?
charlotte_webJan 31, 2012
Microsoft shoots buckshot, hoping that one of those shots will be lucky and produce something. Microsoft wants to be all things tech-related.
Apple shoots rifle rounds; they figure out what they're aiming at first. Apple wants to produce a few high quality products.
chordonblueJan 31, 2012
What's more, Apple controls the software AND the hardware. It's a lot easier designing a product for a completely known piece of hardware than trying to write something for a hodge-podge of PC-like parts.
barfomaticJan 31, 2012
Wish they would throw some of that R&D money back into user serviceability !
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
Yea I don't buy the answer that "Steve Jobs’ insistence on maintaining a startup mentality within Apple (even with 30,000+ corporate employees) and the company’s ability to only focus on a few things at a time mean Apple can spend less and get much more for its investment."
All Google does is invest in various startups within the company. Google spends tons of money and effort trying to create the next big thing from tiny projects and startups.
IMHO the difference is that Apple is not even trying to present a complete and well-rounded product. Unlike MS they are not building an OS for 90-95% of the people on the planet - an OS that is loaded with all sorts of features. Therefore they have a much faster turn-around. MS on the other hand does need to make sure that their OS works with every major printer that came out in the last 20-30 years, every scanner in the last 15 years, can support drivers from half a dozen different video card manufacturers, and run 95% of software on the market. That makes MS top-heavy and slower to innovate - but the solution is not to imitate Apple, and make the product smaller and less useful to the customers.
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
Yeah, you are right! Apple is not trying to create a bloated OS that does everything. That is why Apple has a huge community of developers that creates small little inexpensive or free application that does just one or two things.
That is why I stay with Apple. Oh, and OSX is FreeBSD, so I can use everything that has been ported to it, as well.
You whole argument is so right, and stupid.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
... OK, if you want to be able to run an OS that can't do many of the things that most other people expect by default, go for it.
How about running DOS while you are at it? It's so non-bloated that it fits on one floppy! And you can run everything that has been ported to it!
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
Hmm...can't run a DOS game? Are you on crack! The computer I am sitting on right now has Snow Leopard, FreeBSD, Vista, and Ubuntu, so what can't I run.
Ah, Skyrim, true. But I am on a MacBook for god sakes. BTW my computer is far more versatile than yours.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
You do realize that I was being facetious when I mentioned DOS, right? I was using a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that being able to run anything ported to some OS is not an indication that the OS is any good.
As for what you can't run - you can't run virtually any modern game at a decent resolution. You have no physix support, obviously. Most modern games are not going to work on mac OS - if you have to run them in Vista, then you may as well get a PC. For an example of the support differences, mac has 208 games on Steam - PC has 1508.
How do you figure that your macbook is more versatile than my computer? How many video cards does it have? How many hard drives? How much memory?
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
And I was speaking out of my butt hole since you never even made more than a little comment about DOS.
Sure, this MB might be able to run Skyrim but it would be painful, and I said a MacBook so you should be able to figure out you questions.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
"Sure, this MB might be able to run Skyrim but it would be painful, and I said a MacBook so you should be able to figure out you questions."
Exactly. You can't really run most games, and many of the apps. And most of my questions were rhetorical designed to underline that your laptop is not more versatile than my system.
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
Depends on what you do with it. For me it is far more versatile than a Windows computer could ever be. I am not using this to play games. Sure I could do it on a Windows computer, but why would I? I could pay Microsoft for Visual Studio, but why when XCODE is free. I don't need Office, but when I need Excel or PowerPoint I have it. Other that games, what can't this computer do? Oh, and I have a MBP at home that runs Skyrim. This is just my light trave computer.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
"Sure I could do it on a Windows computer, but why would I?"
Because it is more powerful? Because you can do more on it?
"I could pay Microsoft for Visual Studio, but why when XCODE is free."
You should do that because VS is just plain better, and you will be more productive with VS. XCODE is generally considered to be an inferior development environment compared to visual studio. Just do a search on it if you don't believe me. It has inferior intellisense, bad integration with the debugger, the interface is not nearly as good, etc. Sure XCODE is free, but so is VS Express.
"Other that games, what can't this computer do?"
Have XBox integration. Use a top of the line DVR application. Get upgraded. Develop many of the applications. Macs have fewer accessories and compatible components. Software options for PCs are so much wider and better that it's ridiculous.
"Oh, and I have a MBP at home that runs Skyrim."
You mean a Mac Book Pro? What I said before stands. You can't run modern games at a decent resolution with proper details. Let alone dozens of other games that have even higher requirements, and can produce more complex visuals.
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
LoL!
Dude, a Mac is a UNIX computer. When has Windows ever been more powerful than NIX? Heck the internet runs on Nix, it doesn't run on Windows.
This computer isn't a game machine. If I need a game machine I will run them on my desktop computer.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
"Dude, a Mac is a UNIX computer."
Depends on your classification. IMHO a mac is an overly expensive PC with a crappy OS installed on it. At least the current Intel generation (which is pretty hilarious considering how loudly Jobs proclaimed that the PowerPC architecture was more powerful).
"When has Windows ever been more powerful than NIX?"
1. Whenever the hardware was more powerful (and the OS doesn't get in the way).
2. Whenever there is no equivalent (or even as good) software for UNIX.
"This computer isn't a game machine. If I need a game machine I will run them on my desktop computer."
Exactly - because it's more powerful. Not to mention that it also depends on what you use your work machine for - I need to compile large codebases for work, which is why my work machine is fairly beefy.
southsideirishJan 31, 2012
Really, you do realize, again, that OSX, IS FreeBSD! The crappy part, as you call it is just the GUI. THE OS IS FREEBSD! When has Windows ever been better than NIX. Never! Windows was a bloated piece of s**t. Windows 7 IS FINALLY a good OS, but I can still no more with my IMAC.
And it runs Skyrim just fine. Microsoft wants to just charge the crap out of me for things that should be free.
Oh, and Apple charges more because you pay for support because you pay for support.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
"Really, you do realize, again, that OSX, IS FreeBSD!"
Yes, that has not been news for a decade, and I still don't care.
"When has Windows ever been better than NIX."
Again, when the apps available on Windows are better and more plentiful than the apps available on your "NIX". Such as games and various productivity applications. And when the hardware for the Windows system is better than the hardware available for your "NIX".
Let me get this straight. You have transitioned from trying to prove that your mac book pro is the best computer in the world to attempting to prove that some hypothetical UNIX machine running MacOS is better than some hypothetical Windows system. Is that right, or are you talking about something else? If so, that suggests that you have thrown in the towel and surrendered on the subject of hardware.
"Windows 7 IS FINALLY a good OS, but I can still no more with my IMAC."
I don't know what that sentence means. What does "I can still no more with my IMAC." mean?
"And it runs Skyrim just fine."
No. It doesn't. You just think it does, but you don't have the video card to handle it properly. Not even close to the fidelity that you could achieve on a decent Windows system (such as mine, with a 2-year old video card). Just because you are resigned to inferior game performance and quality does not mean that everyone else should be resigned as well.
"Microsoft wants to just charge the crap out of me for things that should be free. "
What exactly do you think should be free? And why should it be free? Hundreds if not thousands of engineers have worked for years on it - why should it be free? The only way it could be free is if you pay for the privilege in some other way - by paying through the nose for the hardware for example.
"Oh, and Apple charges more because you pay for support because you pay for support."
I don't want to "pay for support because you pay for support". I want to be able to add or replace a hard drive on my own. To upgrade my system however I want to, with whatever components that I want to, not worrying about the drivers. To build the system from scratch for a quarter of the price. I can do that on Windows - I can't with a mac.
macparrotJan 31, 2012
Why is it up to Apple to create drivers for other people's products? If they want to sell to OS X/iOS customers, build the drivers for their hardware to work with it. Microsoft doesn't make the drivers either, they just spend a lot more time making sure much older hardware will work with later versions of Windows which they pretty much HAVE to do since that is the number one buisness desktop OS on the planet. Apple no longer seems to want to compete in that same market, instead sticking to the consumer side.
However I disagree with your assessment that they don't make an OS for 90% of the people, just not for where they work. The consumer side is where the real profits are instead of racing to bottom in costs. Apple with their current focus doesn't seem to care about being the dominent OS, just the most profitable one.
elimgarakJan 31, 2012
"Why is it up to Apple to create drivers for other people's products?"
It's not up to Apple to create drivers for various products - it is up to them to ensure that their driver model is flexible and powerful enough to support other drivers. And that the existing IHVs have sufficient support early enough to build good and stable drivers.
Plus they should make sure that there are no backwards compatibility issues for people that upgrade and want to carry over existing hardware.
"Apple no longer seems to want to compete in that same market, instead sticking to the consumer side."
Exactly. That's part of my point, although I would argue that consumers care about backwards compatibility as well. They have a niche, and they are sticking to it.
"Apple with their current focus doesn't seem to care about being the dominent OS, just the most profitable one."
No, Apple doesn't get any money from the OS. It's primarily a hardware company. The OS is there for them to enable their hardware.
But you are right that Apple gets its money by dominating a horizontal, top layer of the market. They sell premium hardware, focusing on it looking pretty and having an excellent user experience. MS OTOH is almost exclusively a software company, focusing on the vertical approach, and supporting all market segments - from top of the line PCs to low-powered net-tops.
brandanmeisterJan 31, 2012
I love apple bc they PERFECT products but they don't really invent them. I saw th HP touchscreen long b4 th iPad. Mp3 players have been around forever but the iPhone... I'd say apple gets credit for tht one.
What's next....
Will Apple perfect the tv? Looks like it &
MS has been working on a touchscreen kitchen table or desk for Years....
MicroBiltFeb 1, 2012
Love their products. Their designs are amazing!
user2837Feb 1, 2012
I think that this article is an example of good business sense. It shows why this company is where it is today.
majora999Jan 31, 2012
3 of their main products iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad are almost the same product each focused a little differently. Touch obviously toward music, phone obviously toward being a cellphone, iPad obviously for tablet/simplistic computer needs. There really is very little difference between the three when it really comes down to it. And a bunch of people that have one... buy all three.
It's also not hard to spend less R&D money when your whole development is "lets withhold this feature out of this iteration even though it's complete so we can make people buy it again next year!" They just don't release new features they already have working until the next year to con more money out of people, roughly every year.
chadpyleJan 31, 2012
Apple consumers are effectively the R&D department. Every minor revision to the iPhone is branded and sold as a new product.
That's all good and fine for a consumer market but, companies that develop business-critical systems, like Microsoft, have to be a little more diligent with quality control.
Apple products are often referred to as "walled gardens", in reference to the way Apple maintains strict control on interoperability with third-party apps and devices. This provides a very predictable experience for users and undoubtedly reduces their R&D overhead but, it's too restrictive for general business use and consumers who prefer greater flexibility.
The article talks about competing companies failing to offer innovative products but, Apple's contribution to innovation has been largely branding and marketing. The products they've produced over the last decade haven't been first of their kind or included any newly developed technology.
brandanmeisterJan 31, 2012
Imagine if apple Increased its R&D sales by 6 times the current rate.
I'm not gonna 2nd guess apple tho, it looks to me tht they know exactly what their doing lol.
Steve Jobs :(Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
macparrotFeb 1, 2012
Throwing more money into R/D without knowing what it is you're going to make is a waste of time. That's what Apple did from 85 to 97 and it almost killed the company with little to show for it except remodeled computers each quarter, a bloated OS, and a handheld PDA (The Newton) that COULD have been great if it had focused a just a few things instead of everything. When Jobs came back, he did one thing to change the company and that's what saved it. He had the company focus on making one new thing at a time.
First it was the Mac. Three product lines that made no sense and had little to distinguish them. He trimmed it down considerably. Then came a new emphisis on the consumer line with the iMac. Then the OS with OS X, then on music and services related to them with the iPod and iTunes, and so on.
Find a niche that either wasn't there yet or had existing poorly designed or implemented products, release new easier to use products, make billions. However you won't ever really get there with a shotgun approach unless you get extremely lucky early on.
brandanmeisterJan 31, 2012
Imag