Anyone else getting sick of rampant fighting among tech companies? I don't even just mean lawsuits; the latest battle is between Microsoft and Apple and involves SkyDrive and Apple's 30 percent fee on in-app purchases. Come on! Why bother even offering an app in the first place if it's ultimately going to result in another fight?
Here's what's going on: TNW on Tuesday issued a report that claims Microsoft and Apple are butting heads because Apple wants Microsoft to cough up 30 percent of the revenue that it earns from SkyDrive users who opt to buy more cloud storage. Microsoft, for whatever reason, doesn't want to pay the fee. As such, Apple is apparently delaying an update to the iOS SkyDrive application and blocking other third-party apps that access SkyDrive. But here's the thing: everyone knows Apple charges the fee, so why is Microsoft suddenly backing out?
According to TNW, Microsoft thinks that, ultimately, its users may eventually leave iOS for another platform. So basically, Microsoft loses 30 percent in revenue if an iOS user upgrades and then eventually uses the service from another device years down the road. Someone needs to sit down with a calculator, though. The iOS install base is huge, so it's actually putting SkyDrive in front of more eyeballs than if it wasn't available at all. So why is the 30 percent such a big deal?
We'll let you know how this pans out, but the tech wars are getting annoyingly silly.
