1. CS37420 E-commerce The Four Giants A brief overview of Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon

2. Introduction Companies started before internet o Microsoft o Apple Companies started after the internet o Google o Amazon

3. Internet as driving force All four companies are global players Rely heavily on the internet All four are in competition with one another, one way or another Software based organisations becoming hardware vendors All looking to participate in digital content and digital services

4. Microsoft Founded 1975 HQ in Redmond, Washington State, USA Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen CEO – Steve Balmer Revenue 2012 - $74Bn Employees - 94,000

5. History 1975 - Wrote BASIC interpreter for Altair 8800 microcomputer 1980 – Won contract from IBM to supply new OS for the new IBM PC o (Bought CP/M clone and then modified it calling it MS-DOS. IBM called it PC-DOS) 1983 – Paul Allen resigned due to ill health MS – Word (for MS-DOS) featured mouse control and soft-keys 1984 – First release of Windows but MS-DOS remained leader until 1990s

6. History continued 1985 – 1995 – Microsoft Office launched and becomes dominant office suite 1995 – Having being slow to react to the growth of the Internet, MS launches Windows 95 with IE Explorer bundled in 1996-2005 – Big problems with monopoly and anti trust accusations. Microsoft found guilty in many cases 2001 – Xbox launched o Xbox24 million units o Xbox36074 million units (Stats at Sept 2012) o Kinect 19 million units

7. Present (2012) Healthy business New releases: o Windows 8 Runs on PCs, phones and tablets o Office 2013 Still a massive success o Surface tablet Typical Microsoft – launch after announcement o Xbox 360 As hub for home entertainment and computing

8. Future Strategy MS has huge involvement in cloud computing SkyDrive o Core part of Windows 8 o Tight integration in Office 2013 Office 365 services o It is secure, anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, instant messaging, conferencing, and file sharing o Subscription based (£4.50 per month) o Fundamental to Office 2013 Azure is moving entire server farms into the cloud o Storage, computing, websites, connectivity in cloud o Complete enterprise solutions

9. Strategy continued Move towards services o Add value to software offerings o Become solutions orientated o Corporate ERP and CRM systems. Take on Sales Office in CRM o Remain as major corporate supplier of software Enter desktop/tablet market o Corporates now looking to invest in tablet technology o Windows 8/Office 2013 on Surface platform (with keyboard) now very attractive Become centre of home entertainment o Xbox360 for video streaming o Xbox360 linked to Windows 8 phones controllers and Surface tablets as information hubs

10. Footnote Microsoft, without any philanthropic drive, democratised the PC and the use of the Internet Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have set up the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. They have contributed $28billion so far. Warren Buffet will pay in over $32billion Estimates vary but it looks like the Foundation has saved the lives of 5,000,000 kids so far It is estimated Gates has another $56 billion left. His kids get $10,000,000 each. All that remains in the estate after what Melinda gets will go to charity

11. Apple Founded 1977 as Apple Computer, Inc (now Apple, Inc) Cupertino, Ca, USA Originally founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Wayne sold shares back on going public CEO – Tim Cook Revenue 2012 - $156.5Bn (> 2x Microsoft) Employees - 73,000 Currently largest publicly traded company in the world

12. History 1976 - Apple I 1977 - Apple II o First “killer app” – VISICALC 1980 went public creating 300 $ millionaires 1980 – 85 – Lisa and Macintosh o Infighting sees start of Jobs’ demise 1985 – Jobs forced out and start NeXT Inc. 1986 – 1997 Various attempt to revive company failed and it went into decline.. Until Jobs came back 1987 - Steve Wozniak stops formal employment with Apple

13. History continued 1998 – 2005 Huge successes o Ipod sells over 100 million units in six years o Mac OS launched o Development in video editing 2001 – iTunes store opens o 16 billion tracks sold to date (2012) o 400,000,000 active users 2006 – Apple bases computers on Intel processors 2007 – 2012 – Massive success with iPod Touch, Iphone and Ipad 2011 – Steve Jobs dies..

14. Present iPhone 5 Market leader o Most wanted device iPad Market leader o New introductions MacBook Pro series o Expensive but has followers iTunes o Coming under pressure

15. Strategy Expand into new markets such as Brazil Has massive cash reserves Is spending time & effort litigating against competitors New offering such as iPad mini seems confused Loss of Steve Jobs Tablet/Phone war could be lost and then - what? PC market share is about 10%. Will competition in corporate market place be a problem Where is the next killer product Can Apple maintain premium prices?

16. But…. http://youtu.be/7J2Au80BmHc

17. Footnote It is difficult to find out if Steve Jobs contributed to charity He died an 8 x billionaire He didn’t sign up to Warren Buffet’s “Giving Pledge” o Billionaires pledge to give half their money to charity What he left was a dynamic company which had huge criticism on the controls it put on its customers He will be remembered as visionary but he had his faults

18. Amazon Founded 1994 Seattle, Washington State, USA Founded by Jeff Bezos, Chairman, President and CEO – Jeff Bezos Revenue 2011 - $48 billion Employees - 69,000 Currently largest online retailer

19. History 1994 - Founded 1995 - Online as amazon.com 2001 – First profitable year – Original plan called for relatively slow growth 2001 – present – Growth by acquistion and sales revenue Subsidaries include: o LoveFilm o Alexa o IMDb o and a host of others

20. History continued First sold books and then diversified Innovation o Email messaging to customers o Reviews o Also bought o 1 - Click Runs large cloud based systems Handles web sites for o Marks and Spencers o Mothercare o Lacoste o Sears (Canada) o Timex

21. Present Lots of operations in early stages o Fresh food deliveries o Nappy sales o Comics for Kindle Kindle o Heavy investment in Kindle o Digital content provider o Kindle 1.5 : 1 paper books o Software development subsidiaries just for Kindle Robotics o Experimenting with robotics to enhance efficiency in fulfilment centres Digital o 9 out 10 best selling items are now digital content or platforms

22. Footnote Bezos extremely private family man Has given $2.5million to charity Buys companies in areas he is interested in Complaints and protests in Seattle that Amazon doesn’t invest in local infrastructure Also concern on working conditions in fulfilment centres world wide. Spending > $700,000 on air conditioning

23. Google Founded 1998 Mountain View, Ca, USA Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin Chairman – Eric Schmidt CEO – Larry Page Revenue 2011 - $38 billion Employees – 53,500 Currently largest online retailer

24. History Founded 1998 Unofficial Slogan – “Don’t be Evil” Search Engine using PageRank 1998 - $100,000 funding 1999 - $25,000,000 funding 2003 – Moved to Googleplex, Palo Alto 2004 - Acquired Keyhole – (Google Earth)2006 – YouTube 2007 – Doubleclick

25. History continued 2010 – Acquire two wind farms to power servers 2011 – Acquired Motorola Mobility

26. Products and Services Advertising – 2011 advertising represent 96% of all sales o Adwords – For advertisers o Adsense – For web hosts o Analytics – Track visitor usage o DoubleClick – User interests and feed advertisements Search Engine o Most used o Criticism of algorithm (Favours older sites) o Accusation of ranking advertisers Google Mail o Web based – Security issues o Machine read to serve advertising

27. Products and Services 2006 – 2007 Google Docs 2007 – Released Android OS for mobile devices 2008 – Chrome browser 2009 Chrome OS 2010 Nexus phone 2012 Nexus 7 tablet

28. Strategy Move into products to balance services Move to cloud computing Corporate services o Mail o Office suite o Databases Mapping o Has launched joint satellite Home solutions o Maps o Sites o Docs o Images

29. Footnote 2004 – Set up Google.org charity with $1 billion 2008 - $10 million causes voted by Google staff 2010 – 1 million Euros – European Maths Olympiad Has moved away, to a certain extent, from original “Don’t be evil” but still tries to be good citizen

30. Finally The four companies have a combined turnover of over $300 billion There is a lot at stake More litigation Mobile internet is the new game in town Who will win?