Microsoft. Apple. Google.
Three companies staring at each other over the barrel of a gun. Sounds a little like a Tarantino movie, eh?
Okay, so that’s a little hyperbolic. Still, these three companies compete against each other in more than one market. Each is more successful than the other in some key niche. Despite their successes in those niches, they all want a larger piece of those other pies.
What I’m trying to figure out is why these three companies get the lion’s share of attention from the technology press.
It’s interesting that these companies compete against each other on roughly equal footing, if you take into account all of the businesses in which they compete. You don’t see that elsewhere. There’s Intel and AMD on the PC processor side (with an occasional blip from Via), but Intel is the 900 pound gorilla in that game.
On the graphics front, AMD and Nvidia go back and forth, and depending on which press release and which analysts you read, Nvidia or AMD has the lead in market share in some key segment.
Despite the heated competition, and their impact on technology, you don’t see these companies mentioned in the tech press as often – and you certainly don’t see them lionized the way Apple and Google are.
Google owns search and search ads, Bing and Yahoo notwithstanding. Most of its revenues comes from search. They’re trying to get into the OS market, and the success of Android is a testament to their drive and talent. However, despite the recent cries of “Android has the number one share in smartphones”, sales of any one branded unit doesn’t approach the iPhone.
Microsoft still owns the PC desktop, Apple’s efforts with MacOS notwithstanding. Google has aspirations, but nothing significant yet, though it’s made some inroads on the office applications side of things.
Apple owns mobile. By “mobile”, I mean the iPhone and, to a lesser extend, the iPad and Macbook line.
By this time, you’re thinking: wait just a minute fella – there are more than three companies competing in those businesses. RIM does pretty well in smartphones – maybe better overall than both Google (Android) and Apple.
That’s all well and good, but I’m curious as to why Apple and Google in particular get so much attention from the tech press. Recently, Ed Bott noted in his Twitter feed that 49 stories popped up around the web regarding Google’s announcement about shutting down Google Wave development. Meanwhile, he could find zero stories covering Microsoft’s latest IE9 preview, which demonstrated impressive speed and hit 95/100 on the Acid3 test.
Intel recently garnered some attention when it announced its milestone for optical interconnects. Of course, the company got even more press when the FTC settlement was announced.
All these stories paled in comparison to the vast amount of press surrounding Apple’s perceived failure with the iPhone 4 antenna. The amount of attention paid to what’s really a relatively minor flow was incredible – it was almost as if no other technology news happened. If I were a PR rep for any other company, I’d just postpone all my product announcements whenever a wave (ouch, sorry) of Apple stories floods the web.
I’m also curious about reader behavior. Given the nature of the web, these stories wouldn’t gain traction of the page traffic was absent. Clearly, stories about Apple and Google generate traffic. Maybe it’s understandable, given the strong feelings people have about both companies. But the media herd mentality means that other interesting and cool stuff gets overlooked. And that’s a loss for all of us.
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6 comments
Ted says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:03 pm (UTC -7 )
I think it boils down to what’s approachable by a standard user. It seems all the companies building UI’s (into the OS, into the mobile OS, into the Internet) get all the press. At the end of the day it’s a simple thing to switch from Intel’s latest & greatest to AMD’s, or AMD’s to nVidia’s; it’s not the same paradigm shift as switching platforms so it’s upon the platform that the great amount of energy, thought, and vilification goes. The best analogy I can think of is furniture vs. a house; I don’t update facebook when I get a new couch or bookcase, but I do when I buy a new house.
Ale says:
August 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm (UTC -7 )
And what about those rumors about google and verizon trying to kill net neutrality?
And about the podcast, why dont you ask Gary Whitta, As and ex EIC of PC Gamer and you ex EIC Extremetech and both great writers and cool geeks. Will be great.
David Johnston says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:00 pm (UTC -7 )
The Tech media, as any with any other social endeavour, is not immune to the phenomenon of the “popularity contest”.
Matt says:
August 5, 2010 at 7:26 pm (UTC -7 )
In terms of market cap, AAPL, MSFT, & GOOG are way ahead of NVDA or AMD. Simple really, the bigger the company is, the more they are followed.
Tom Vaughan says:
August 5, 2010 at 10:39 pm (UTC -7 )
So true Loyd! Good point.
You know me… I represent a PC Software company. Despite the fact that people still use local PC application software to do all of their real work, the tech press only seem interested in mobile devices, social media sites and PC hardware (which turns out to be utterly useless without software). And it’s true… whenever Apple, Google or Microsoft are doing anything significant, every tech writer in the world seems to be covering it. It’s a shame, since there are so many great innovations happening that have a much more meaningful impact on people’s daily lives.
Google Wave is a prime example of this obsession. The press coverage was unbelievable… thousands of stories when it launched. Did it deserve to get so much attention? Was it really so noteworthy? The answer is obvious.
darrin says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:17 am (UTC -7 )
Intel, amd, and NVIDIA supply intermediate components. Their products are important but behind the scenes stuff to end users. SAP and IBM and Oracle are extremely important too but completely uninteresting to regular consumers. Apple, Google, and Microsoft make products that are most directly interesting and relevant to regular users.