Report: Apple close to winning over studios
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Apple is near to closing agreements with all of the top studios, BusinessWeek reports.
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(InfoWorld) - As this year's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) approaches, Apple fans are furiously speculating on what kind of news will be dropped on us in San Francisco. We already know about the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard preview, and no doubt Apple CEO Steve Jobs will have something to say about the iPhone. But from what I know about the players and the IT landscape, I think Jobs has another "just one more thing" up his sleeve. I've been looking at what Apple and its partners need to do to fill gaps in their product line-up. At the moment, I think the Macintosh platform's biggest weakness is its reliance on Microsoft Office for productivity software. Microsoft has always built solid products for Mac -- but they were always just a bit behind or somehow incompatible with their Windows equivalents. Entourage does 90 percent of what Outlook does, but it lacks features right where it hurts: In enterprise settings. Word for Mac doesn't have the same Macro or OOXML support as the PC version. PowerPoint files are still not 100 percent compatible between platforms. Basically, Apple and its customers get the short end of the Microsoft stick. Add to that the industry move toward Web 2.0 applications and Cloud computing -- and a number of other recent shifts in the technology landscape -- and you have a climate for change. I don't think Apple wants to wait on Microsoft to delegate how its business applications will work. In fact, I think Apple would like to move forward with a leading-edge partner like, say, Google and create business rather than follow in it. That's why I think Jobs will take the stage at WWDC next week and announce that Apple and Google are going to team up to bring Google Apps to .Mac customers. Let's connect some dots and see what picture emerges: In a recent stockholder meeting, Jobs admitted that .Mac has hasn't achieved its full potential but said the company is working on it. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and a member of the Apple Board, has said there are a lot of Apple-Google partnerships to come because both companies have "common competitors." Hmmmm. Microsoft is a common competitor, and its bread and butter -- aside from Windows -- is Office. We've already seen a flurry of Google Applications for Macintosh, plus GMaps and Gmail on the iPhone, so why not Google Docs and Spreadsheets integrated into .Mac? Seems like a perfect fit. Using iChat as a guide, we know that another network -- AOL -- allowed .Mac users to use their own xxx@mac.com address as their AOL Instant Messenger screen name. Google could do the same thing in Apps. Perhaps the whole mac.com domain would be ported to Google Apps. Google has lots of cheap, fast space. It also has the ability and desire to search it and advertise on it (monetize it). Gmail has won the battle against .Mac's mail for most Macintosh users. As for calendar/IM/address book integration, disk space, and spam detection, Google wins most of the battles hands down. Google spends $5 per domain for Apps users through its Adsense subsidiary. It wants more non-paying users, and Apple would be happy to offload its .Mac users. Those users, who pay $100 a year as .Mac members, could get a premium version of Google Apps with desktop backups and larger file space as well as the benefits they currently enjoy. Apple's focus is on hardware and software. It should -- and should want to -- stick with what it does best. We know that iChat in Leopard has a special account preference for GTalk accounts. Of course, you can currently use any Jabber server in iChat -- GTalk is based on Jabber -- but it's interesting that Apple has split off GTalk from the rest of the Jabber servers. It has been 18 months, forever in software development at Apple, since the iWork app was last updated. That is lots of time for Apple to do some pretty interesting things. I would love to see Apple enter the Blog editing game, where MarsEdit, Ecto, and Journaler are sweeping up. Such a move would be a serious game changer for the fight on the Mac platform between Apple's Pages and Microsoft's Word. And for Google, what better way to get into blog editing than with its Writley technology? Google needs a Keynote type of presentation tool; Apple needs a spreadsheet tool to round out their Office competition. Each has what the other needs. Throw Sun's OpenOffice.org into the mix. The first native Alpha release of this software came out this week. Both Apple and Google have been playing very nice with Sun lately. iWork. The most important piece of the puzzle might just be iWork, which could be a caching front end for Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Use it when you are on an airplane, at grandma's house with no Internet, in the subway, or wherever Internet access is spotty. Or how about this curveball: Apple could port its iWork and iLife applications to Windows? Quicktime and iTunes already enjoy a large following in the Windows camp. Woo them with the apps, win them over to the OS. Oh, and one more thing. I realize we're flopping off of the deep end here, but what if Apple were to sell a Leopard virtual machine for Windows that functions like Parallels in Coherence mode (except you'd have the Mac OS running in Windows, not the other way around)? The result: Run Leopard anywhere! You could even boot from a Google hosted OS. This need not be a full version, mind you, but a stripped down, embedded version of the Mac OS like what's being thrown into Apple TV and the iPhone. One of the great things about virtualization is that there's less need for drivers and such, which makes installing small Google or Apple apps on your Windows desktop easier. Okay, that scenario could be years away, or never to be. But I think there is every chance that we'll hear something about .Mac integration with Google Apps next week. It makes sense for all parties and would finally give Microsoft a run for its money. Plus, there's that old saying: the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Seth Weintraub is a global IT management consultant specializing in the technology needs of creative organizations, including The Paris Times, Omnicom and WPP Group. He has set up and managed cross-platform networks on four continents and is an expert in Active Directory/Open Directory PC and Macintosh integration.
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There may not be anything as exciting as the iPhone at next week's Macworld, but Apple should once again own the January trade show season.
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Sure, Apple is expected to report healthy earnings on strong Mac and iPod sales, but the buzz is still about the iPhone.
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TechWeb - Apple remains confident that it can hit its target of 10 million phones shipped within its first year of sales, but financial analysts are wondering whether there's trouble brewing.
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Apple's movie rentals will boost the company's business, and iTunes is set "to become a key destination for movies," researcher says.
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Apple to announce deal with Twentieth Century Fox allowing movie rentals through, according to reports.
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Apple Corp. and Apple Comp. - aka the Beatles and the maker of the Mac - are reported to be on the verge of ending their legal dispute over the latter&#39;s right to operate in the music market.
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Apple Computer Inc.'s blow-out quarterly results had investors cheering on Thursday, but Apple's profitability could weaken as the Mac and iPod maker goes after lower-priced consumer markets that it has shunned in its nearly 30 years of existence, analysts said.
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New surveys credit Apple with overwhelming market share and brand recognition, but competitors may find success at low end of market.
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Apple has the iPhone. Apple does not have the iPhone. Apple will release the iPhone at MacWorld early next year. Apple will not release the iPhone at all.
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Mac fans, brace for impact: The annual speculation about what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve is already at full throttle. At the top of the rumor mill's leaderboard? A very small subnotebook.
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Apple and Motorola &quot;could soon show us&quot; their co-developed solution. A report on Forbes cites Apple vice president of applications
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The blogosphere pretty much predicted everything Apple announced yesterday. Is the company losing its touch?
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TechWeb - The Mac faithful are hoping that Steve Jobs can somehow top last year's blockbuster announcement of the iPhone.
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Forget pushing the envelope: Apple is likely to take it easy on its allegedly forthcoming phone, an analyst predicts. In Gear Factor.
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Apple reported strong earnings for its fourth quarter on Monday, boosted by record Macintosh computer sales and the shipment of 1.12 million iPhones.The company beat analyst estimates with net income of $904 million, or $1.01 per share, compared with $542 million, or $0.62 per share, in net income reported in last year&#39;s fourth quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial estimated a consensus of $760.45 million in net income and earnings of $0.84 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 29.The company reported $6.22 billion in revenue, up from $4.84 billion in the fourth quarter last year. The revenue consensus from analysts polled by Thomson was for $6.07 billion.For fiscal 2007, Apple reported net revenue of $24 billion and net income of $3.5 billion, said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple&#39;s CFO, in a conference call with financial analysts.Looking ahead, the company estimates that revenue will hit $9.2 billion with earnings per share of $1.42 for the first fiscal quarter of 2008, Oppenheimer said.The company shipped 2.16 million Macs during the quarter, a 34 percent growth over the year-ago period, Apple said in a news release.Mac sales increased worldwide, spurred by back-to-school promotions, said Tim Cook, Apple&#39;s COO, on the call. In addition to rapid growth in the U.S. and Europe, Mac unit shipments also increased in Japan, a major market where Apple has traditionally struggled to grow, Cook said.Shipment of Mac notebooks, including MacBook and MacBook Pro, grew 31 percent year-over-year and accounted for 62 percent of all Macs sold, Oppenheimer said.Given the success of this back-to-school period, Mac sales could be flat in the upcoming quarter, Cook warned.Sales of the iPhone are outpacing those of the iPod during the first few months after its 2001 introduction, Cook said. The company shipped 1.39 million iPhones during the year and saw a spike in sales after a $200 price drop of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399 in September.Apple is confident it will sell 10 million iPhones in the next calendar year, Cook said.Apple sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, a 17 percent year-over-year growth. iPod has sold 120 million units to date, Oppenheimer said. The upcoming holiday shopping season will be a big quarter for iPod sales, Oppenheimer said.Apple had a busy quarter with multiple product announcements.Last month, it unveiled the&#160;iPod Touch, a portable multimedia player with a touchscreen user interface and Wi-Fi capabilities. It also announced availability of the iPhone in Europe, with U.K. network operator O2 (UK) Ltd. slated to start shipping the device in November.The company is excited about entering the Europe market, and plans to enter the Asia-Pacific market in 2008, Cook said.On the software front, Apple announced iWork &#39;08, its office applications suite, in August. Mac OS X Leopard, Apple&#39;s latest operating system, will begin shipping later this week.This story was updated on October 22, 2007