There’s been a lot of talk about bad store practices lately, where Apple consistently finds itself in the hot seat for overcharging for services provided by the app developer, not Apple. I’m amazed that any company thinks it’s a good idea to charge a company for something they do themselves. And while Apple’s size and incredible power made it nearly impossible to sue them, Fortnite stepped in and sued Apple under anti-trust law, claiming the fee is a tariff that unfairly penalizes businesses. that do not use Apple resources.
In contrast, Microsoft has announced that it will charge if you use Microsoft’s more reasonable financial services, but if you choose to implement a store from within your app, you can do so for free. So with Microsoft you pay for the service you get and, as is usually the case in the real world, if you do it yourself, you don’t have to pay anyone “tax”. either for this privilege.
Let’s talk about the difference between Microsoft’s and Apple’s go-to-market approach in the context of this admittedly rather obvious better approach to generating revenue.
The “monetize everything” years
Microsoft and Apple weren’t that different. Both became companies during the era when IBM was dominant and both companies initially used the old IBM as an example of a business model. Both companies continued to follow this model after IBM nearly shut down because of it. You see, IBM was charging whatever it could back then. You even had to pay for patches created by IBM. I was working at IBM at that time. When I pointed out that this policy was suicidal, an executive explained to me that IBM was selling the air equivalent and that customers had to pay what the company charged.
I pointed out that eventually clients understand this stuff and the outcome could be disastrous. My once-dominant division ended up on life support because customers caught on. In the decades following the abandonment of these biased IBM policies. Today’s IBM is open, more customer-focused than revenue-driven, and is once again known for delivering good value, not taking advantage of customers. Granted, IBM no longer has that kind of power either, but it has learned that mining customers for money is, as I said, suicidal.
Microsoft learned that lesson the hard way about a decade later in the EU when its second major anti-trust challenge hit. After struggling with the European Commission and losing heavily, rather than continuing with its walled garden policy and refusing to interoperate, it pivoted hard and decided to be the best at interoperability. Not only has the regulatory pressure largely evaporated, but customers have begun to complain less about Microsoft and praise it more. And revenues continued to rise. It was one of the greatest examples of doing the right thing being economically as efficient as doing the wrong thing, but without the long-term regulatory costs and risks.
This new thinking caused Microsoft to stop fighting the open movement and start embracing it, to stop seeing Linux as a Microsoft threat and instead as an opportunity for Microsoft developers, and to stop focusing on customers in as banks and to consider them rather as partners. .
This change accelerated once Satya Nadella joined the company. Comparing the Microsoft of the 90s, which was the company people loved to hate, to the Microsoft of today is like night and day. Now, among the big tech companies facing regulatory pressures, instead of Microsoft being at the top of the list, it isn’t even on it.
Conclusion: Microsoft is better placed
Within Microsoft, people seem happier, less stressed, and much less defensive. At Microsoft’s recent annual Build conference, one of the multinationals on stage said that the difference between Microsoft and its cloud competitors is that when a company asks for help, Microsoft collaborates on how to deliver it, while Microsoft’s competitors send out a catalog effectively saying, “Here’s our stuff; you will understand it. While that’s been the common way of doing things in the past, customers aren’t fans, and Microsoft’s best approach is clearly appreciated by those on the virtual Build stage this month.
The new Microsoft Store reflects this new way of thinking, treating customers and developers as they would like to be treated and only charging them for things that are of greater value. I expect the future of Apple to ultimately mirror IBM. The book “After Stevesuggests this result and reflects the fact that although the business has become larger and more profitable, it is also at much greater risk. Microsoft has improved after Bill and Steve’s departure to better reflect the realities of today’s world and move away from the lockdown policies of the past. It’s not a bad reflection on Bill or Steve. Their policies reflected the mainstream thinking of their day, but we’re in a different world now, and Microsoft, with the move toward interoperability, open source, Linux support, and now this new customer-centric store and developers, reflects today’s better world.
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