Microsoft and Apple Rumble Into Middle Age

Hugh Pickens writes "Bill Briggs writes on MSNBC that the two tech titans are rumbling into middle age as Microsoft marked its 35th birthday on Sunday and Apple turned 34 late last week. But while Microsoft, to some, appears a tad flabby in the middle — a Chrysler Town & Country driver with a 9 pm bedtime — Apple, in some eyes, looks sleeker and younger — a hipster in a ragtop Beemer packed with chic friends sporting mobile toys. 'The difference between the two companies is that Apple has been fearless about transformational change while Microsoft has been reluctant to leave its past behind,' says Casey Ayers, president of MegatonApps. 'Microsoft has always been loath to change and risk alienating some of its customers, but its inability to leave the past behind has left their product line bloated and dysfunctional.' On current accounting ledgers, Microsoft overshadows Apple: Microsoft's market cap is $255.75 billion; Apple's is $213.98 billion. But Apple is getting awfully big — awfully fast — in Microsoft's rearview mirror. Consider that a decade ago Microsoft's market cap was almost $590 billion and Apple's was about $16 billion. So while Apple cheered its opening weekend of iPad sales, what wish should Microsoft have made when it blew out its birthday candles Sunday? 'More than anything, Microsoft's birthday wish should be for fearless leadership,' says Ayers. 'Without someone at the top who feels an urgency to constantly innovate in meaningful ways, Microsoft will shrink and become less relevant with each birthday to come.'"

Comments

Not really so

[sopssa]

Microsoft has always been loath to change and risk alienating some of its customers

Uh, maybe if you're only looking at Windows and/or Office products. They also seem to do greatly, so why fix something that isn't broken?

But with some of their other divisions I wish they didn't change. Anyone else remember such from Microsoft Games as Flight Simulator, Age of Empires series, Halo, Train Simulator, MechWarrior, Links, Midtown Madness, Motocross Madness.. Now that they changed they're not publishing or developing those kind of games anymore. In fact no one is. Microsoft Games is just for Xbox 360 anymore.

"Without someone at the top who feels an urgency to constantly innovate in meaningful ways, Microsoft will shrink and become less relevant with each birthday to come."

Just yesterday slashdotters laughted how Microsoft is burning money on their online division like Bing and other properties, how it's completely useless. Which one it is now, to think long term or not to think?

Re:Not really so

[SargentDU]

Many of those games you mention are acquisitions by Microsoft, not developed in-house. That is not innovation, it is acquisition.

Re:Not really so

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Microsoft Games as:

• Flight Simulator - developed by subLOGIC.
• Age of Empires series - developed by Ensemble Studios and which withered after MS's acquisition,
• Halo - developed by Bungie, another company that made awesome products until MS bought them.
• Train Simulator - developed by Kuju Entertainment and licensed to MS.
• MechWarrior - developed by Dynamix, is this owned by MS now?
• Links - developed by Access Software, again bought by MS afterwards.
• Midtown Madness - Developed by Angel studios, part of Rockstar, later bought by Take2. I don't think this is owned by MS though.
• Motocross Madness - developed by THQ, part of Rainbow, not MS.

You've put together a lovely homage to MS's buying out and ruining of good game companies since every good game you came up with was developed by a company that MS bought out after they made something good, or which you thought was made by MS but was actually not. More than half the companies no longer exist having been mothballed by MS.

Fanbois spew summary

[PeeAitchPee]

God, I just lost 40 IQ points reading the garbage summary. Can you be any more biased?

Re:Fanbois spew summary

[gsgriffin]

I'm allowed to disagree on /. I hope. Bias that is trying to sway people by leaving out all the facts is not helpful.

Apple is the THE most monopolistic company involved in electronics today. At one time, the fanboys used to point fingers at MS at being the big monopoly. Now Apple controls all software, hardware, distribution for everything the touch. Sure they make good products, but they were also positioned in such a way that they could screw over their base and make huge OS changes over the past 30 years and leave all previous software behind. You upgrade to new OS, you buy all new software too. Apple could do that with only a handful of buyers. MS on the other hand had millions of corporate and individual users that couldn't afford to purchase completely new versions of all of their software they bought.

Did MS lack the ability to change and advance fast, OR did market mandate that they move slow? I think a reasonable argument could be made for the latter. I know that through each new version of OS that MS produced, I was able to keep the thousands of dollars of software I had invested in. Now with Win 7 working wonderfully, I would expect to see more Apple attacks so they don't lose ground against MS.

Fearless Leadership?

[necro81]

More than anything, Microsoft's birthday wish should be for fearless leadership," says Ayers. "Without someone at the top who feels an urgency to constantly innovate in meaningful ways, Microsoft will shrink and become less relevant with each birthday to come

There's another component you need if you want to use fearless leadership and disruptive innovation to be the bedrock of your success: you need to also be right. Apple's taken some big product risks. None of them were exactly bet-the-company-big risks, but pretty risky. The fact that we're still talking about Apple is that they've taken chances and been right. There are plenty of companies out there that had a scary-cool product or technology, something transformational, but missed something along the way: misjudged the market, misjudged their capital needs, rushed a buggy product to market, etc. Don't hear much from those companies anymore.

While there's something to be said for bluffing in poker and going all in, it's much better to go all in when you've got the cards. You can bluff and buy the pot only so many times before someone calls you on it and you're out of the game.

Not that hard to understand

[93 Escort Wagon]

Microsoft has been consistently successful - in and of itself, that makes it hard to "leave the past behind". Over the same period, Apple made a slew of really bad decisions which brought the company pretty much into irrelevance by the mid-1990s. For Apple, leaving the past behind was an asset - Apple basically had to make itself over just to survive. That's served Apple well this decade, but let's not forget where they were (compared to Microsoft) previously.

Your Description Of Apple As Hipster

[SplicerNYC]

Could not be more obnoxious sounding. Only hipsters love hipsters because they often don't see how truly annoying they are.

Re:This isn't a troll, just my opinion.

[Pojut]

Microsoft fanboys don't pretend they are better than you...they pretend the products they use are better than the products you use. I'm fine with that. I've been a gamer and internet lurker for a very long time, I'm used to that sort of thinking. While I personally think it's stupid to lock yourself into only one option (i.e. I owned both an SNES AND a Genesis), I understand why some people have that kind of mentality.

Apple fanboys, however, go beyond mere brand loyalty. Apple fanboys insinuate that they are a better person than I am simply because they use Apple products and I don't. That is something I have absolutely zero patience for.