With $100 Billion in Cash, Why Doesn’t Apple Buy App Startups Instead of Trying to Copy Them (ex. WhatsApp)
OK, copying is the most sincere form of flattery – we get that. But when you’re Apple, a company that has $100 billion in cash you actually can afford to buyout an already finished and used product. Go ahead Apple, buy WhatsApp – fans will still love you and the rest of your users will be thankful.
It’s hard to be a developer these days. Especially if you’re a mobile developer, working on apps which provide smartphone users with functionalities that their mobile platform doesn’t have. And it’s not like Apple doesn’t acquire a dozen companies each year, for their technology.
Take Apple’s iOS for example. Do you remember the differences between iOS 3, 4 and 5? And now iOS 6 is coming, bringing you even more great stuff. But that ‘great stuff’ wasn’t always there.
How Much Inspiration Is OK?
Take the Reminders app for example (which was introduced with iOS 5) – it’s a great app for managing your to-do list, it has quick and responsive interface, the ability to remind you on a date or when you’re leaving (or arriving to) the specified location… It’s everything a to-do application should be. However, did Apple even consider the numerous developers that published so many (even better) to-do before Reminders were published? In fact, there are so many to-do apps that even AppStore has it’s own ‘Productivity’ category. Why not just go with what works and, I don’t know, acquire one of these many todo apps instead of creating a whole “new” app?
The same goes for iMessages – a way to exchange free messages with other iPhone users, much like BlackBerry’s IM service. OK, it’s a nice option to have, to chat for free with friends, but c’mon Apple, where were you when WhatsApp or Viber brought messaging and VoIP calls for free? What’s even worse – iMessage is iOS 5 feature only – while WhatsApp allows you to chat not only with older iOS users, but with your Android friends as well. Yeah, Apple, you don’t want people talking to their Android fans but wouldn’t it make sense for the most control-breaky company on the planet to control this piece of the experience as well?
Bad Behavior
Take websites and domains for example – when a web service has a big userbase on its own, competition will have a hard time creating a similar product and making it so popular. Instead – they’ll form an agreement, buyout, acquisition, whatever – and leave the service on its own domain name; because of the users – users love it and they don’t actually care who is the owner and where their monthly subscription is going to. As long as the service functions and solves their problems – they’ll use it.
As long as I can chat for free with my Android friends via WhatsApp, I don’t care about iMessages. But I’d be angry as a bird if Apple banned WhatsApp from the AppStore just to force me to using iMessages. Don’t try kill off those small companies by making “simple” alternatives that actually don’t work – why not acquire them with a bit of that cash and make them even better? On the other hand, would such a move invoke a monopoly inquiry?
