Microsoft strikes back with new Surface Pro 3

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Microsoft has presented this afternoon in New York the new Surface Pro 3, his third attempt in the tablets. It has done so on the scale comparing a tablet that comes with a vocation to replace your laptop against undisputed king: the MacBook Air. 800 grams and 9.1 mm thick for the third generation of Surface with 12 inches compared to 1.35 kg and 1.7 cm to the 13-inch Macbook Air. Not bad, really.

Absolute growth of Apple. +39%

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After analyzing the results , this is what I have commented Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer , CEO and CFO at Apple respectively, in the press release :

We are very proud of our quarterly results , especially our strong iPhone sales and record revenues from our services. We are eager to launch more new products that only Apple could bring to market.

We generated 13,500 million in cash to our operations and we have returned nearly 21,000 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in the fourth quarter. This makes our dividend program has already returned 66,000 million. 

The total cash available right now Apple is enviable 150,600 million. In addition, the company has used the press conference to announce a split of its shares, which means that now Apple will have a greater number of shares traded maintaining its social capital. Having exceeded expectations, shares have risen 7.7% since the results were revealed.

Here are some interesting points that Tim Cook mentioned by Luca Maestri , who gets the role of Peter Oppenheimer to anticipate your retirement

• Apple is gaining market share in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada , Germany, France , Vietnam and China.

• Confirmed 800 million iTunes accounts , most of them linked to a credit card.

• IPad sales were worse than analysts expected, but better than I expected Apple.

• Already Apple Stores in fifteen countries. Angela Ahrendts is confirmed that Apple will enter next week .

• 66% of those who have activated a new iPad are people who had never had an iPad .

• Apple has bought 24 companies in the last year and a half.

• We have sold over 6.3 million iPhones last year .

• ITunes Digital stores have generated 5,200 million dollars in revenue , growing 24 % over last year. Have been downloaded more than 70,000 million applications.

• The good performance is due mainly to Mac MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

• The iPad web traffic is four times greater than the web traffic of all makes and models of Android tablets combined .

• Two-thirds of people who want to buy a tablet in the next three months want to buy an iPad .

• Financially, Peter Oppenheimer leaves an Apple twenty times larger than the one found . He has not missed any release of results in ten years.

Questions and Answers Press

Here we highlight the most interesting questions that the press has made Tim Cook and Luca Maestri:

800 million iTunes accounts is a great growth ... then why the revenue growth has decelerated in iTunes? Tim commented that think they can monetize their services in existing areas and in new areas, but also notes that even so the growth has been very strong in markets such as the Chinese .

Can you accelerate Office for iPad tablet sales? Tim has realized that the iPad is the fastest growing product in the history of Apple, and "believes" that Office can help as a key tool in business.

Many competitors have lowered the prices of its smartphones, how do you see the market? Tim 's answer is that Apple wants to watch for those who only want the best smartphones, and not all of these smartphones have to be the most expensive. They have learned much selling iPhones in China.

Does the AppleTV stops being a hobby? Tim insists that other for sales and have good feelings about the dealings with distributors of content.

Apple wins or Apple loses, really can be only one?

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One of the great debates that are built around the technology business is about who is winning and who is losing. It seems no middle ground support and often results in one winner and several losers. Depends on who you ask, you can say that Apple and Google won, Samsung and Microsoft lose, especially the latter.

Google wins because Apple lost and Microsoft has been crushed. Microsoft is ready for an imminent return because the other two were asleep. Samsung is overtaking Apple and Microsoft at the same time. Is this true? Is there a common base or economic sense to support these claims today?

I win, you lose

There is a misperception that the economy is a zero sum ​​game when you lose. That everything I wear is because you have removed yourself. This concept is closely linked to the term commercialism, we define: 

Economic system based primarily on trade development, mainly to export, and considers the possession of precious metals as a characteristic sign of wealth.

From this perspective, the economy of the countries was during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries as if it were a game of poker: the players' chip pass from hand to hand according the skill of each. Similarly, the wealth of each country is measured in terms of the amount of precious metals (gold and silver) which was in their possession, having two ways to enlarge:

1. Trading, exporting more than it imports. If lots sold abroad, goods are exchanged for precious metals and the country's wealth increases. 

2. Attacking the neighboring country to plunder their gold and silver and protecting the territory from external invasions.

This perception that it was only possible to increase the wealth neighbor taking it away (peacefully or militarily), seems to come to this day and is installed directly in the technology industry. Involves large as Microsoft, Samsung, Google and, of course, Apple. 

Rethinking the winners and losers

What if all this is not so? Is it possible that Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung win at the same time and coexist in relative "peace"? That is not necessary for Apple to win, others have to lose. I think it is possible, in fact, has long been so.

If you look at the different businesses, we see that they are not 100% incompatible with each other:

• Apple is a vertical business that is almost impossible to replicate at that scale. Its main strength lies in the attractiveness of its closed system. 

• Google has a universal character who aspires to be everywhere and on all platforms, both iOS and Android and Windows Phone. Not forgetting the PC, mobile and tablet. Where will be the user, will be Google. 

• Google is like Microsoft in its horizontal nature concerning the platform. The new CEO seems to have regained the essence of Microsoft to have presence beyond its own platform. For example Office for iPad.

• Samsung, Korean hybrid that also follows a vertical scheme but aims to have a product for every age and budget.

Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Some do better than others and will win money, sometimes more and sometimes less. The rivalry is more intense among businesses of the same type as the Apple and Samsung vertical or horizontal as Google and Microsoft, but that does not mean that one should die for the other to succeed.

Can Apple beat all records when discloses its quarterly results, but that does not mean that Google and company will have to go wrong, do you think?