Off topic sorry but with all the comments discussing Office's size and age and technical baggage ... does anyone know how they pivoted from X million lines of code for a desktop application to running it on the web with all those collaboration features?
because the trend looks linear at a glance, and doesnt really provide a visual representation of the absolute difference in sizes. not to mention its quite rare to see log scale graphs, and many people wont even notice that it is, and leave with the wrong impression
I wonder whether the left-behind small-fry employees make out comparably to how they would with an IPO or big acquisition.
Or if the deal is more like: "We'll pay you double what you could make elsewhere for the 2 years we want you to Potemkin Village, or you can walk and get paid zero; we don't care, because enough people will stay."
I guess VCs can't force founders to stay (the only penalty for joining Google is loosing some/all of their Windsurf equity, but I'm sure they chose what's better for them), and employees didn't need to agree (they have no vote).
No one is saying the niche doesn't exist. The embarrassing part is that ever since Jobs' triumphant return to Apple their magic was making what looked niche blow up into an everywhere device. Since Jobs passed, Apple has slowly been losing that magic, and this headset is a beautiful illustration of Apple's inability to find those everywhere devices.
Honestly, at this point, if Jobs were still there we'd probably have no VR headset, but a TV with appleTV built in that also magically provides Atmos surround without any extra hardware and magically "just works" to find any and all content you'd want to watch from any service. The resurrected Apple used to be good at finding what people didn't even know they wanted. Now it's a zombie walking around hoping people see the value in what they make.
This. I know TVs don’t have great margins. But OLED plus a great UX would seem to generate better margins in Apple loyalists than those folks buying Samsung or LG or Sony.
Now there's a space that's ripe for disruption. TVs.
I love having apps for streaming services on my TV - but I hate smart TVs. I hate them because their UX is always slow and clunky, they have more bloat installed than a contract smartphone in 2010, and they run a custom, closed OS that will stop getting updates three months after it's released.
Well, that's not true. They'll push and update a year or so later that puts ads on your homescreen that you can't remove.
I won't pay $1,400 for a new 60" Samsung QLED smart TV, but I'd spend $3k on a TV with the same specs and no smart features. I'd just do what I do now, and plug an Android TV box into it.
I've used AppleTV a bit, both their app and the hardware device. I honestly prefer the Android TV boxes I have, but it's more than adequate. More importantly, it's fast and flexible enough to support multiple providers in one app.
If Apple were to build a TV with AppleTV built-in, with the same specs as the Samsung, I'd probably buy it at $3k. I'd definitely buy it at $2k. I'd consider it at $4k or above, depending on whether Apple improves and expands AppleTV.
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