Apple Doing Well

Image via CrunchBaseDaily Mail: Apple is now bigger than Microsoft and Google combined - and worth more than the gross domestic product of Sweden

- The tech giant's stock is worth more than the market capitalisations of rivals Google ($196.8bn) and Microsoft ($256.1bn) combined.
- Apple's profits recently passed $1 billion a week and the company now sells a million iPhones a day.
- Apple's stock is worth more than the gross domestic product of Sweden - $458 billion.
- Apple is worth more than all the gold in the American Federal Reserve - $350 billion
- and all the illegal drugs in the world, $321 billion
- sold 37.04million iPhones - its flagship product - and 15.43million iPad tablets, doubling from a year earlier.
- its war chest of cash and securities to almost $100billion - more than enough to plug December's U.S. budget deficit.
- Apple's iPhone business is now bigger than the whole of Microsoft .... The company's smartphone division generated $24.4 billion of revenue in the quarter up until December, whereas the whole of Microsoft generated $20.9 billion in the same quarter.

Clearly Apple is an iPhone, iPad company like Microsoft used to be a Windows, Office company.

Related articles

• Apple is now worth more than Microsoft and Google combined (dailymail.co.uk)
• Apple now worth more than Google, Microsoft combined (currentindiaaffairs.wordpress.com)
• Microsoft + Google = Apple - SlashGear (slashgear.com)
• Apple Now Worth Than Microsoft And Google Put Together (cultofmac.com)
• Apple Now Worth More Than Microsoft, Google Combined (business.time.com)
• Apple's iPhone business makes more money than the whole of Microsoft (buzzom.com)
• Motorola 'demands' 2.25% of all iPhone, iPad sales (fiercewireless.com)
• Apple is now worth more than the GDP of Sweden (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• Apple Employee: The New iPad's Screen Is 'Truly Amazing' (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
• Apple's iPhone Business Alone Is Now Bigger Than Microsoft (businessinsider.com)

Apple Is Being Unreasonable

Apple Inc. (Photo credit: marcopako )FOSS Patents: Apple requests U.S. preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus based on four high-power patents
The Verge: Apple seeks to ban Samsung's Galaxy Nexus, but it's really going after Android 4.0
CNet: Apple seeks U.S. ban on Galaxy Nexus
The Next Web: Apple moves to ban the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the U.S., attacking Android 4.0 with 4 tough patents
Electronista: Apple's new Samsung lawsuit targets Siri-like search, more
Phandroid: Apple at it again, file injunction request against Galaxy Nexus

This reminds me of the Cold War. The Soviets would threaten to obliterate America. The Americans would threaten to obliterate the Soviet Union. They went back and forth for decades. Finally they came to their senses and started talks to dismantle their nuclear weapons, much of them. But first they achieved Mutually Assured Destruction. As in, both would disappear if either carried out the threat.

Instead of the big companies engaging in such Cold War style drama it would make sense for them to come together and take the lead on software patent reform. Things in that department have been crazy for a while. And the big companies themselves have suffered much. Patent trolls have milked the big companies over long years.

For Apple to get offended by Siri like services would be equal to Google saying the search box is theirs and theirs alone. No, it isn't.

Apple right now is acting Soviet.

Software patent wars are energy that needs to go into innovation. There is plenty of work for the industry to do.

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Corporations And Now Government?

Image via WikipediaRIM is in trouble. Their flagship BlackBerry is in serious trouble. The iOS assault is total.

BusinessWeek: U.S. Air Force May Buy 18,000 Apple IPad2s for Flight Crews

Steve Jobs stayed true to the consumer. That is how he started his career. That is how he ended his career. But now the iPhone and the iPad together are going places that Steve Jobs studiously avoided. He disliked the idea of having to sell to this one CIO person who would decide on behalf of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people working in that company. Instead he preferred to go straight to the consumer.

That still has not changed. It is not the CIOs of the world that are making these decisions. Those Apple loving consumers, guess what, many of them work for these companies. Ends up many of them also work for government.

And RIM is being pushed off the cliff.

If 90% Of The People Start Voting

Image via WikipediaA Facebook Supported Online Parliament

These blog posts probably belong at my other Barackface blog, but never mind.

I was thinking, if Facebook were to manage to create an online parliament for an entire country, the percentage of people voting might shoot into the sky. The average in mature democracies right now is 50% I think. I can see that going up to an unheard of 90%.

It is like in Nepal there was a democracy movement in 1990. And it was successful. Nepal became a multi-party democracy. Before that it was a monarchy that called itself a no party democracy. As in, there was a parliament. What else do you need to be a democracy, right?

Anyways, there was now democracy. But then the communists came out of the woodworks. The most ultra among them called for a boycotting of the "bourgeois" election. 60% of the people voted. Those communists then claimed that means 40% of the people sided with them! Go figure.

But then I just had to share that relevant story.

A Facebook Supported Online Parliament

I just came across this interesting idea on TechCrunch.

Jon Evans: Is Facebook Finally Going To Do Something Interesting?

An online parliament would be nice. The administrator would invite people or keep the voter pool open. The online parliament would allow for the holding of elections and subsequent debates.

Say I run an organization that has 500 members. I would use the Facebook Online Parliament to get all members to join, and then to hold elections, and to hold subsequent debates. The debate of course would include the organization's budget.

The election process has the nomination process. Say there are five offices and 30 people running for each of them. The organization should have the option to hold a run off election between the top two vote getters.

I think it would be fun. It would be great. It would make some serious noise if Facebook were to make it possible to do this at large scales. How about being able to do it for an organization with 10,000 members? Or a country with half a million people? Or, god forbid, a country with 50 million people? The election commission of the country would have to put together an official list saying these Facebook members are voting citizens. That would be a challenge, but a much lesser challenge than is the putting together of the current offline voter lists. They leave out too many people in the first place.

This would be huge.

This is not Facebook Groups. The Facebook Online Parliament would be a whole different ball game, a different magnitude altogether.

I hope they nail this by the next F8 Conference.

This online parliament would be great for democratic organizations where each person is one vote. Something different would have to be built for corporate organizations. Facebook should go ahead and built that too.

Buy Asana. Integrate it into Facebook. Add features.

Have Started Playing CityVille

I am a pretty accomplished farmer at Farmville on Facebook. But then I have not been active in months. I have played Angry Birds on Google+. But today I decided to play CityVille on the Google+ platform. It is fun.

I had managed to never spend a dime on Farmville. Cityville cost me 10 bucks on the first day. I am like, I can't wait, let's go get some energy. That was five bucks. Before you know I had put down another five bucks for a few thousand coins.

The Zynga business model works.

I am in mind to go back to growing my city only organically, as they say in tech startup world. Act lean.

I see me spending a few minutes every day to slowly build my city.

Farmville Farmer's Market: My Idea
Played Farmville After Long Months
Farmville Has Not Been Loading For Me
Farmville's Got Competition