Apple Versus Microsoft: A Battle of Ideas

[Magnus]

Tom Gara writes in The National, "The battle between Microsoft and Apple is about more than market share. It is about ideas, strategies and ultimately, personalities, with both companies led by larger-than-life chief executives."

The memo Steve Jobs sent out in the wake of the MobileMe fiasco, Gara writes, "is Apple in a nutshell: a small, focused business that works to gain new ground by launching products leaps and bounds ahead of the competition."

In contrast, "In his memo to the company, sent at the end of July, Mr Ballmer said Microsoft would, among other things, out-innovate Google in search, build a tighter software-hardware ecosystem than Apple, make the best mobile phone operating system and become the number one enterprise software company, eclipsing businesses like Oracle and SAP."

Gara finishes, "Both companies have huge roles to play. Microsoft is home to many of the world’s brightest software engineers, and remains responsible for how the majority of the world experiences personal computers. Apple redefines industries and brings early-adopter technologies into the mainstream. But as computing becomes a more fragmented, customised, web-based experience, with new markets emerging on a monthly basis, who would you place your bets on: a perfectionist firm that apologises for – and learns from – their errors, or an overreaching empire?"

[medopal]

Thanks Tom, really great article.

who would you place your bets on: a perfectionist firm that apologises for – and learns from – their errors, or an overreaching empire?"

Answering your question, well, i prefer to stick with the perfectionist, even if the perfectionist sometimes be a little less than perfect.
Whats the point of sticking to the empire, if you will be always frustrated by their products?

Another question you can ask, is: would you bet on the innovative that gives you products 2-3 years before their time, or the one who give you 5 years late products but more compatible?


BTW: anyone saw IE8 features? congrats IE users now you have "Private Browsing" and "Webslices"!!!! Guess what, we have been using those features in Safari for years.

Thats what i mean by "innovative vs late"

Thanks again

[fangpyre]

Who does he mean by:

"a perfectionist firm that apologises for – and learns from – their errors, or an overreaching empire?"

Apple is unapologetic about its mistakes usually.
It has kept its customers in the dark, and in many cases doesn't acknowledge some bugs till they release the fix (if then).

I know they offered Mobile ME users credit.
But other than that, nothing.
For the problems with iPhones, Airport, etc...

I would still lay my bets on Apple.
Because even with those frustrations, I would be ahead of the class.
In MS I will wait for 5 years, then get bug-riddled software, get an apology, and then a fix.
In all about 5-5.5 years later than Apple's fixed product.

Apple is far than perfect.
But at least it knows what perfect is.

[medopal]

Still love Apple

After the whoe world was punked with Vista, M$ show up and say, well, we advice users to downgrade to XP!!! yeah, what about the 350$ people paid?

The next day Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates announce Windows 7!!! What??

More than that, they are paying Jerry Sienfield 10$ million to convince people of Vista!! come on people. u can spend those 10 million on somethign useful

[fangpyre]

True dat.

And Jerry is a Mac user!!