[FoRK] $100M for iPhone Developers

[Luis Villa]

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>  >> The key thing here is that even small payments add up quickly in a
>  >> mass market.  It's conceivable that the iPhone installed base could
>  >> quickly get into the 100s of millions of units.
>  >
>  > I'm very curious to see if that is actually the direction they go;
>  > it's not at all clear that they're going to offer the low-cost model
>  > that would push them in that direction.
>
>  Who's "they?"  Prices are to be set by app developers, and "free" is
>  an allowed price (in which case Apple collects its usual 30% --- of
>  zero.  I.e., if you make your app free, you don't have to pay Apple
>  for hosting and distribution.)

Sorry, I meant Apple; to get to 100s of millions of handsets out there
there will need to be a lower-end phone and so far no indication (not
even rumors) they're going in that direction.

>  >> FWIW, back when we were attempting to do deals with the Magic Cap
>  >> hardware vendors (Sony, Motorola, Phillips, and Panasonic for
>  >> starters) it was common for them to want a piece of the action.  Our
>  >> software had a recurring revenue piece, and they actually wanted *us*
>  >> to pay *them* for access to (i.e., bundling the basic apps on) the
>  >> device, and they wanted a piece of that recurring revenue.  Point
>  >> being, this sort of thing isn't uncommon in the consumer device space
>  >> --- the economics are completely different from what you see in the
>  >> general computer market --- and this isn't at all the surprising /
>  >> appalling thing that some folks are making it out to be.
>  >
>  > It is definitely fairly commonplace; running the tollbooth always
>  > looks like a profitable temptation. I don't think it's a coincidence,
>  > though, that the one of the vendors brave (foolhardy?) enough to take
>  > a pass on this model is the most dominant, durable, and pervasive
>  > platform monopoly that the consumer electronics industry has ever
>  > seen.
>
>
>
> ?

Microsoft.

Luis