Bill Gates on the iPad:
“It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”
Roy Greensland writes a good headline:
Would Murdoch have spent £650m on a print plant if the iPad had been around?
Well, his response will be YES.
But as Burda or Rusbidger, I am sure that they know that these are tha last huge printing presses that the buy.
Printing is not our business.
Vertical integration is not the right strategy.
Universities need buildings but they don’t own construction companies.
And the cars of Ford needed tires and many years ago owned big rubber plantations in Brazil.
Yes, the 10,000 km² of land of Fordlandia!
So are the new mobile digital tablets going to be the next BIG IDEA?
Yes.
But no media company needs to become an Apple, Microsoft, Samsung or Nokia…
We are not in the bottling business.
We are in the wine business.
Content matters.
Platforms, no.
Newsprint will survive.
Printing presses will survive…
But journalism will not need them like in the past.
More cheap, green and efficient digital platforms will be available in less than three years.
So cheap that media publishers will be more than happy to give these devices free to their subscribers.
When you see than in less than 10 days the photo application of The Guardian has generated 50,000 downloads, you know that the iPad and the digital tablet are here to stay.
If you read the news dispatch from EFE, the Spanish news agency, the sales of the iPad were lower than the iPhone ones.
Well this reporter and his editors must live in an imaginary world.
The buzz of the new iPad has been bigger and louder than any other Apple product ever.
Ask Microsoft.
Ask Google.
Ask Nokia.
Ask Nintendo.
Ask Sony.
They know better than the lousy EFE report.
A better and more factual account comes here:
“Piper Jaffray Senior Research Analyst, Gene Munster, originally projected first day iPad sales to between 250 to 300,000.
After spending some time at the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City on Saturday morning, that number was increaded to between 600 to 700,000.
These numbers are based on 730 customers being counted at that particular store, and compares to 350 at the same location for the iPhone 3G S launch, and 540 for the iPhone 3G.”
During an awkward, glitch-ridden presentation in Las Vegas last night, Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, flashed a few “slate” PCs running Windows 7.
As one of the YouTube comment says, “presented by a clown in a red v-neck.”
It was so embarrassing…
The other Steve, Steve Jobs, must be really happy with all this free advertising of “the real thing”
“Yesterday’s answer has nothing to do with today’s problems”
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft company.
