Apple vs Microsoft

Hello PC users and MAC users. Shall we talk about the Apple vs Microsoft? :)

Today I am not going to talk about rivalry but rather discuss a parallel story that changed all of our lives.
Not going into too much, Apple and Microsoft started almost same time, and they had similar goal to deliver personal computers to every household, first in the USA then rest of the world.

Goal was the same, business models were different. Microsoft chose to just focus on making operating system and other software then just license them to other company. While Apple's business model was to do it all: hardware and software, that way they thought they could produce the best product.

Two important figures played crucial role and they are the pioneers of personal computing: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. These two visionaries made tremendous impact in the world, taking on a mission of making personal computing possible. We owe great deal of gratitude for their work in personal computing space. Initially, they may be considered as rivals, but after examining the history it becomes they were complementing each other.

Microsoft took the road of making OS and just focusing on software and letting other company make the hardware, that gave an opportunity to scale and Windows concurred the world. On the other hand Apple decided to stick with perfection and made hardware and software themselves, and became a quality premium computers brand. That is not to say Windows computers were of low quality. Yes we had and do have high quality of computers, but they were and are more expensive than Apple computers. It is the price range option that was given to consumers made it possible for Microsoft to grow globally, while Apple remained to be for few, however treated as premium product.

Eventually by late 1990s Apple was in trouble, they almost went bankrupt. In my opinion, it wasn't about Apple's business model, it was mainly Steve Jobs was no longer there. At that time Steve Jobs, who was fired by Apple early on and who created companies Next and Pixar which became very successful while he was out of Apple, was brought back to Apple. First he was brought back as consultant then hired as CEO again. Didn't he prove them that he was the secret sauce of Apple all along? Of course, not without Microsoft's help. Bill Gates and Microsoft bailed Apple out of brink of bankruptcy.

Well, after that we all know what happened. Apple has been killing it. They reworked the OS, brought ipods revolutionizing music industry, then iphone, then ipad, macbooks, imacs, etc. Later more about them in details. Shortly though, Apple was back and it seems is here to stay for a long time. We have lost Steve Jobs, but Apple seems to be continuing in his footsteps and continuing doing good. But we are yet to see innovations. If they fail to innovate, they might be trapped like Microsoft and will have to face a catch up game.

What do I mean with Microsoft catch up game? Since Bill Gates left that's all they have been doing. First they come up with Zune as competition for ipod and it fails miserably, they cancel the project. They were the first to make the tablet, but failed again. Years after that failure Apple successfully released ipad tablets. While Microsoft laughed at first then they decided to make a tablet. They have Surface, and I think it is pretty good and the reason it is pretty good and successful is they made it themselves not leaving it for third party. Windows phones, OMG, haven't they failed miserably. They tried everything, and even bought Nokia for ton of money, spent ton of money on advertisement. Where is it now? Scrapped. No more windows phones. How about bing? do any of you use bing? didn't they try so hard to catch up in search engine space? Total failure, although bing is still here, future will tell what will happen to it.

One thing Microsoft is doing well these days though, is cloud. I have seen some of their demos live at the conference, I am convinced they will lead this space. That's a topic for another post.

Both of these company are in great need of innovation. With their visionaries not leading them anymore, it makes me wonder shall we have a third company emerge ?

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