Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 09/24 – The Rebel Alliance Forming To Battle App Stores

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

The Rebel Alliance has a name: The Coalition for App Fairness. Microsoft will make office available without a subscription. Software as a purchase, if you will, instead of a subscription. Radical. Say hello to the Galaxy S20 FE. And does the gaming industry make pre-orders and console launches so messy on purpose? Sponsors: Amazon.com/techmeme PayPal App Links: Epic, Spotify and others ally against Apple and Google app policies (Engadget) New Microsoft Office on the way for people who don't want a subscription (Windows Central) The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE brings some flagship specs at a $699 price (The Verge) Google Maps gets a COVID-19 layer (TechCrunch) Sneaker Platform Goat Group Raises $100 Million to Fund Expansion Plans (WSJ) How a marked-up term sheet and messy rollout threw TikTok deal into disarray (Reuters) THE GAMING INDUSTRY KEEPS FAILING MISERABLY AT SELLING ITS MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCTS (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech Beam Ride Home for Thursday, September 24th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. The Rebel Alliance has a name, the Coalition for App Fairness.

Microsoft will make Office available without a subscription, software as a purchase, if you will, say hello to the Galaxy S20FE, and does the gaming industry make pre-orders and console launches so messy on purpose? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. It looks like an official rebel alliance is forming, headed by Epic and Spotify, an alliance that is officially being called the Coalition for App Fairness, which claims, quote, Apple taxes consumers and crushes innovation, and that this new coalition will advocate, quote, for freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem, end quote. Epic and Spotify are the leaders, as I said, but they're joined by Match Group, Basecamp, Deezer, Pre-Pair, Proton Mail, and Tile, among several others.

So basically, anyone who we've ever talked about having an official beef with Apple is in there. But the coalition is not just going against Apple, of course. Their guns are trained on the Google Play Store as well. And broadly, just the group wants to push for new regulations around how app stores in general are run, quoting and gadget. The coalition will allow those companies to pool resources and lobby as a group. group while giving clout to smaller developers who could never tackle giants like Apple or Google alone. It's open to companies of any size and any industry who are committed to protecting

consumer choice, fostering competition, and creating a level playing field for all app and game developers locally, according to the coalition. The group has proposed a code of conduct. It wants Apple and other app store owners to adopt. It requests that developers should not pay quote, unfair, unreasonable, or discriminatory fees, that developers should have access to the platform's technical details, and that they shouldn't be forced to use an exclusive app store, quote, including payment obligations, end quote. The gatekeeper platforms that operate these app stores must not abuse the control they enjoy and must adhere to oversight to ensure their behaviors promote a competitive market and

provide consumers with equitable choice, the self-funded group said in a statement. The basic freedoms of developers are under attack, said Tim Sweeney, chief executive and founder of Epic in a statement, we are an advocate for any company that's ready to reclaim its rights and challenge the anti-competitive behaviors that exist on app stores today, end quote. This is an interesting change of strategy. Microsoft has announced that a standalone non-subscription version of Office will be released in the second half of 2021 for both Windows and Mac users,

quoting Windows Central. Microsoft will release a new perpetual release of Microsoft Office in the second half of 2021. The new perpetual release only appears in a single sentence of a post by the exchange team at Microsoft, but it confirms that new versions of Office are on the way to Windows and Mac. While many have moved over to Microsoft 365, some prefer a perpetual license for Office that allows them to purchase a product once and have it forever. Microsoft usually releases perpetual updates to Office every few years, though some were concerned that Office 2019 would be the last perpetual update. Luckily for those who prefer a perpetual license, a new version is on the way,

end quote. No word on price or the exact date of availability, but for whatever reason, count me as one of those who enjoys having a perpetual license. I don't know why. Maybe I'm old-fashioned. Maybe I just actually enjoy owning a thing, at least in theory. I don't need a new version of office every year. Twice a decade is fine for me, or at least has been for the last 20 years or so, usually. As Kate Cox snarked, quote, software as a purchase, what a novel idea. And as Raj Sarkar tweeted, this is called disrupting the industry and thinking outside the box, who said SaaS pricing only has to be a subscription. We all know you can easily build a price using perpetual cash flows, end quote. It's just Microsoft used to get perpetual corporate licensing

and bundling with hardware sales. They still have that, and now they have that. And now they have a robust subscription product. So why leave money on the table? Even if we get to a world where everyone just pays Uber or whoever it is that wins $300 to $500 a month for transportation as a service, there will still be some people who will want a pony up and pay $30,000 a year or more to actually own their own cars. In such a world, those customers will always exist, so why not take their money. We know you can already get the Galaxy S20 phones from Samsung in three different flavors. There's the just S20, the regular, if you will, but there's also the S20 plus and S20 Ultra. And now there's a fourth flavor called the Galaxy S20 FE. FE, according to Samsung, stands for

fan edition, which means, I don't know. But it will come in six different colors. It will be available on October 2nd, and depending on if you go for the sub-6 gigahertz 5G model, it will cost $699, or it'll cost $749 for the MM-Wave 5G model, quoting the verge. The S-20 FE has a 6.5 inch display that slots it right in between the smaller Galaxy S20 and the larger S-20 Plus. Like those phones, the FE has 120 hertz refresh rate for smoother animations and graphics, but unlike those phones, its screen is completely flat and can't be cranked up to a quad HD plus resolution. It's also plastic on the back, but if it's anything like the note 20s plastic, it'll probably feel all right. Samsung is marketing the color choices heavily. There's red, orange, lavender, mint, and white. All of these

colors are prefixed with cloud. Samsung's indication that they have a matte finish that should hide fingerprints. Otherwise, though, the FE doesn't skimp on specs. It has a 4,500 MAHBH battery, 6 gigabytes of RAM, wireless charging, IP68 water resistance, expandable storage, and the top flight Snapdragon 865 processor. The FE also loses out on having Samsung's higher megapixel rear camera options, but so far those extra megapixels haven't been the huge win Samsung was hoping for at the beginning of the year. Its main rear sensor is 12 megapixels with OIS, plus there's a 12 megapixel ultra-wide and an 8 megapixel telephoto. Samsung says the telephoto is a 3x option, and a 3x optical zoom, and it further says it is keeping the 30X space zoom feature, albeit driven more

by software than hardware. Those sensors do mean the FE won't be able to swing 8K video, but that's not a huge loss. Samsung is also continuing its tradition of throwing odd duck cameras into its lineup as the selfie camera on the FE is 32 megapixels, similar to what appears on the Galaxy A71, end quote. Samsung told Dieter Bone at the verge that they hadn't been planning on doing an F-E model at all, but then the pandemic hit, and they decided that they wanted a lower price point, something in the premium mid-range category. So from not even planning to offer one, to designing one and getting it out the door all since March, pretty impressive iteration on Samsung's part, wouldn't you say? Google has rolled out an update to Google Maps that includes

a layer that will show you COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over localities that you're searching, with labels to indicate recent trends. Google says this is coming to 220 countries and territories globally, quoting TechCrunch. Where possible, the data is granular down to the city level, but that obviously depends on the numbers Google is able to pull in. Google says the data comes from a number of sources, including Johns Hopkins, the New York Times, and Wikipedia, which get their information from local and intergovernmental government organizations. That's the same sources Google pulls from when it displays COVID data on its search results. page, end quote. So you're supposed to be able to see this if you open up Google Maps and tap on

that layers button on the top right of the screen. The layers button looks like two pieces of paper stacked on top of each other. I tried this myself this morning and I didn't have it yet, just the usual traffic, transit, biking, and 3D layers. But Google says it is rolling out on Android and iOS this week, so maybe check again. This is a hella interesting raise, not for any strategic reasons, but just because I continue to be fascinated with what a big market and business this represents. Goat Group operates the online sneaker marketplace, Goat. Goat Group has raised a $100 million Series E from D1 Capital Partners at a valuation that sources claim is in the $1.75 billion range.

Quoting the Wall Street Journal on the size of this sneaker market, as I say, quote, sneaker culture has grown in prominence in recent years as young shoppers seek out rare shoe models online and pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to collect them. It has helped propel the growth of new marketplaces and businesses such as Goat Group and Stock X. In July, research firm Cohen estimated the sneaker and streetwear resale market is north of $2 billion in North America with the potential to reach $30 billion globally by 2030. Naturally, the area has also drawn investor interest. Founded in 2015, Goat Group previously raised nearly $200 million from investors, including a sell, upfront ventures, and retailer Foot Locker, which last year invested $100 million

in the company. Goat Group plans to invest more to be a bigger platform for fashionable apparel and accessories even beyond sneakers, including items sold directly by brands, said Eddie Liu, Goat Group's chief executive. More than 350 brands sell their products directly on Goat Group's platform, according to the company. Fashion brand Alexander McQueen this month used Goat Group to help introduce its MCQ label of jackets, dresses, and other apparel, end quote. Timely reminder that the TikTok saga is maybe not over. In fact, there's another weekend deadline staring us in the face.

Bite Dance has asked a U.S. court for a preliminary injunction to prevent the U.S. government from banning TikTok from app stores as Trump's ban looms. it takes effect, or at least is scheduled to take effect again, at 11.59 p.m. on September 27th. Bight Dance has submitted an application to the Chinese government to approve the current deal involving Oracle and Walmart taking a stake in the company, but we don't know how long that approval might take, or even if it will come at all, and thus the need for the injunction. And even then, there's still that whole disagreement wherein BightDance claims it will retain 80% ownership of Ticktock Global, the new company that would result from the deal, while Oracle says the company will mostly be owned by U.S. entities and that Bight Dance will have no ownership, which, you know, one of those two positions can't be true.

Meanwhile, sources describe frenzied negotiations continuing between BightDance and Sipheus and Fly by the Seed-of-Yanx deal-making going on even at this hour, quoting Reuters. With Bight Dance and TikTok suitors angling for an agreement that both the U.S. and China can approve, key elements of what would be the social media industry's biggest, ever deal, potentially worth more than $50 billion, were not spelled out in a comprehensive contract that is typically seen in high-stake mergers. Instead, the companies were asked to agree in principle, and at breakneck speed, to a Sipheus 20-page revision, a wash-in red font with markups to a proposal that ByteDance had submitted only four days before. If ByteDance did not have a deal by Sunday, the e-commerce department would block downloads and updates to the TikTok app. All sides agree that Oracle would take a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global, a newly created U.S.

company that will house TikTok's global business and store U.S. user data in its cloud, with Walmart taking a 7.5% stake. But the fate of the remaining 80% stake in TikTok Global is in dispute. Bightdance says it would hold an 80% stake in TikTok global itself until it launches an initial public offering in the next 12 months and that it would then gradually reduce its stake. Oracle said on Monday that ByteDance would not have a stake in TikTok global at all, and that it would be bite-dance's investors who would be awarded the remaining 80% stake. This is also how some Trump administration officials, and even a top bite-dance investor have privately described the deal. This discrepancy could be enough to scuttle the deal. If the Beijing-based company gets to

keep a majority stake, it would represent a major reversal for the White House. If ByteDance got no stake in TikTok global, it would be a blow to China, where officials have been opposed to stripping bite dance of one of its most prized assets, end quote. So you might be as tired of this saga as I am, but just a note to keep your eye on it, because it might not be anywhere close to done. Nick's stat at The Verge looks into something that I've always wondered about myself. You know how every time we get a new generation of video game consoles, they always seem to be sold out. The companies can never seem to meet initial demand, which there might be a COVID excuse, this time, but if you think about it, don't these companies always fail at pre-orders?

Think back to previous generations. It's always been thus, right? So maybe, just maybe, this is all purposeful, maybe there's at least an implicit desire to create a narrative of scarcity and thus demand and status. Statt seems to agree with me, quote, why in the year 2020 are companies as large, experienced, and well-funded as Microsoft, Sony, and Nvidia still failing at pre-orders? It's an especially puzzling question when companies like Apple, Samsung, and even Facebook-owned Oculus seem to have figured out how to properly manage expectations and sell a new in-demand service without turning it into a stress-inducing scramble.

We still have no idea how many units any of these companies intend to sell, or how many they allocated to each retailer, or to what extent they plan to restock at any point this year. Right now, if you don't have a confirmation email in your inbox for a new PlayStation or Xbox or a receipt for an Nvidia RtX 3080 card, you may not get your hands on one until 2021. Everything is sold out with little to know information on when the situation may change. With record demand, companies like Microsoft and Sony could very easily implement a lottery system or any other manner of fairer pre-order processes, or they could allow retailers to disclose how many consoles they have, among other ways of helping manage consumer expectations.

For instance, the Oculus Quest 2, which went on sale last week and starts shipping on October 13th, is simply backordered by about a month in the U.S. and Canada. Instead of telling people a product is sold out and hoping they'll check back at the right time, without any idea when that might be, Oculus is transparent about when it expects the product to arrive and is still taking orders. Apple does the same every year when it launches new iPhones, smartwatches, tablets, and other devices. The primary issue at play may be one of misaligned incentives. The video game industry is fiercely competitive and a primary motivator for even...

The video game industry is fiercely competitive and a primary motivator for even companies as large as Microsoft and Sony is getting to signal to investors, analysts, and consumers that a product is flying off the shelves and almost impossible to find. Immediate sellouts for these companies is a positive development because it means demand is higher than supply and they don't have to worry about producing units that sit unsold on store shelves or retailer-weller-weigh. warehouses. In an ideal world, this would be a solved problem, just as Apple has streamlined the process of selling as many iPhones as it can every year. But the video game industry doesn't have much to say about how it intends to fix this, and it's not clear these companies even care to try, end quote. Yeah, I guess I miss the window to successfully pre-order a PS5. So I guess I'm in the, I'll see it sometime in 2021 vote, which is fine by me. We're mostly a Nintendo Switch family at the moment. And except for that Spider-Man Miles Morales game, there's really no new game that I see on the horizon that we need to have at the moment.

Plus, I'm still obsessed with Crusader Kings 3 on the Mac. Anyway, remind me to tell you whenever we do the next listener Colin episode about how I'm slowly but successfully turning the doffinate of Van Nuir into hopefully eventually the true France, or at least the true Burgundy. If only I can get that pesky emperor of West Francia to die and have too many heirs and have them squabble over the bones of the empire soon, soon. Talk to you tomorrow.