Microsoft vs Apple

Aren’t we in the Post-PC age already?

The fact is that when you compare Microsoft and Apple, you’re not comparing like with like.

Being a company fortunate enough to have a popular product implies a level of responsibility to past, present and future customers. The more popular the product, the greater the responsibility. Microsoft has a responsibility to over 90% of home desktop users and even more than that in business markets. Apple doesn’t. Apple can afford to push boundaries which may or may not pay off for them because, quite frankly, who cares? If they get it wrong, who’s it really going to affect? They have that luxury and more power to them. They’re doing a good job and I hope they keep it up.

In comparison, Microsoft’s decisions have implications on a global scale and its innovations have to be in accordance with that reality.

That’s not to say that Microsoft innovation is crippled by compromise, lethargy or inertia, but rather that it innovates in areas where it really, really matters, rather than what’s simply going to be a popular money-spinner.

Yes, they throw money into plenty of other areas too - Zune, Xbox/Xbox360, gaming, hardware. Some of it’s good and some not so good, but just because you might think that Microsoft doesn’t do as good a job at search engines as Google, develop better MP3 players than Apple or gaming consoles than Sony, why should Microsoft keep out of those markets altogether? And why is it indicative of their imminent decline?

That’s a type of brand-loyal elitist blinkered arrogance which seems to be increasingly accepted but is actually quite nauseating.

When you watch Steve Jobs and Bill Gates speaking together, you’re not looking at men whose respective companies are slugging it out in the same weight division. If Jobs says that “…the era of the PC is largely over”, whose interests do you think he’s serving by making that statement? Yours? The IT industry’s? Don’t be naïve.

We're in the post-PC era? Not a chance.

http://apcmag.com/6624/end_of_the_pc_era_dont_make_me_laugh