> My point is that they lost a recurring customer by not creating it. Think of it similar to the police response to a bank robbery. I can guarantee that the cost of the response is several orders of magnitude greater than amount even in the bank, let alone what the thieves are actually able to steal. That is because they are not reacting to the cost of the money being stolen, but to the long term costs of making it seem like anyone can rob a bank. If Microsoft made an App for EVERY platform, regardless of cost, it would be hard for anyone to even penetrate into the marketplace, therefore ensuring longer term success.
I don't think shareholders would appreciate MS throwing money at every platform at launch.
>Secondly, Microsoft loses over 2B a year with Bing. They are a huge company with very deep pockets, and I highly doubt hiring a few dozen swissarmy programmers would make much of a dent comparatively. Theirs is not a finical issue, but one of leadership, and culture.
That is because the search market is huge, whereas Office software for a tablet that only sold when it was a final firesale.. not so much.
And if you think porting Office to a tablet can be done by a few dozen swissarmy programmers... I am sorry. Even HP didn't make a office suite for it for launch.
"I don't think shareholders would appreciate MS throwing money at every platform at launch."
The "Office" market is huge, as well. And they like what makes them money. I am not saying they should do this on every platform, I am saying that they risk losing customers with every platform that comes out that they do not have one for. While my specific example was the touchpad, the same argument applies to the iPad and Android markets.
"And if you think porting Office to a tablet can be done by a few dozen swissarmy programmers... I am sorry. Even HP didn't make a office suite for it for launch."
HP didn't make the touchpad, Palm did. Palm was not an office oriented company, they were a device oriented company. Secondly, Docs to go does it regularly, and has done it for over a decade. Again, this is not about bringing over the codebase to new platforms, it is about branding a product with similar functionality on every platform.
I don't think shareholders would appreciate MS throwing money at every platform at launch.
>Secondly, Microsoft loses over 2B a year with Bing. They are a huge company with very deep pockets, and I highly doubt hiring a few dozen swissarmy programmers would make much of a dent comparatively. Theirs is not a finical issue, but one of leadership, and culture.
That is because the search market is huge, whereas Office software for a tablet that only sold when it was a final firesale.. not so much.
And if you think porting Office to a tablet can be done by a few dozen swissarmy programmers... I am sorry. Even HP didn't make a office suite for it for launch.