Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Tex]

re dollar share

Even crazier than the dollar share is the profit share, if you look only at hardware manufacturers. However, since Apple is also carrying the water on the software side, one has to look at the OEM software vendors to see who's profiting from computer sales that aren't just computer builders. Microsoft is still making a killing, it's just doing it at the apparent expense of hardware partners rather than in seeming symbiosis with them. Apple needs to do a lot -- a lot -- of work on its applications before it has any hope of unseating MSFT from its preeminent position in the applications space.

The interesting thing is, though, that Safari/Win has shown Apple can turn Cocoa projects into MS-Win applications just fine. Microsoft has still got some serious moat left in the applications space (installed base, format lock, and most especially absence of well-known and effective competition) but it seems the other players are working on their bridging techniques (OpenOffice continues to improve, and Apple has apparently bridged the API divide and needs "only" fix its applications so they are tolerable for serious users). The applications revenue is so big that I can't imagine Apple -- a software company -- hasn't noticed what it's sitting on.

Hmm, anyone care to guess whether Apple has got MacOS X running on an XO behind a locked door in Cupertino?

For those of you who like baseball, the littler fields used in Japan apparently make 16yo girls competitive pitchers:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/more/11/17/japan.schoolgirl.ap/index.html

Take care,
--Tex.