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How, and Why, Apple Overtook Microsoft
HughPickens.com writes James B. Stewart writes in the NYT that in 1998 Bill Gates said in an interview that he "couldn't imagine a situation in which Apple would ever be bigger and more profitable than Microsoft" but less than two decades later, Apple, with a market capitalization more than double Microsoft's, has won. The most successful companies need a vision, and both Apple and Microsoft have one. But according to Stewart, Apple's vision was more radical and, as it turns out, more farsighted. Where Microsoft foresaw a computer on every person's desk, Apple went a big step further: Its vision was a computer in every pocket. "Apple has been very visionary in creating and expanding significant new consumer electronics categories," says Toni Sacconaghi. "Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult." According to Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, Microsoft seemed to have the better business for a long time. "But in the end, it didn't create products of ethereal beauty. Steve believed you had to control every brush stroke from beginning to end. Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection." Can Apple continue to live by Jobs's disruptive creed now that the company is as successful as Microsoft once was? According to Robert Cihra it was one thing for Apple to cannibalize its iPod or Mac businesses, but quite another to risk its iPhone juggernaut. "The question investors have is, what's the next iPhone? There's no obvious answer. It's almost impossible to think of anything that will create a $140 billion business out of nothing."
"Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult."
"Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult." That's why Apple has had its share of failures..."
Additions mine. This is one fact that a simple google search would have shown. One may ask, are the authors of these pieces paid?
Microsoft sell to people who want to use computers without learning how they work.
Apple sells to people who want to look richer than they really are.
In reality, Apple is competing with the makers of fake jewelery.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
right and touchscreen smart phones were widely used before the iPhone? yes you had business phones. they had shitty web browsers, could barely display one email at a time, and were a joke.
The apple introduced the iPhone, and all those companies what had smartphones before are either gone, or fading away. So yes you are technically correct apple didn't create the smartphone sector. Apple turned a tiny niche, into a massive piece, showing companies how doing something right all the way through can lead to massive profits.
So when you turn a few thousand units a year into a few billion units it is building it out of nothing.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
From where I'm sitting, it seems like Steve Jobs is getting credit for Steve Balmer's profound and pervasive ineptness.
NTT had them in Japan.
Apple did make smartphones a mas consumer device, added more functionality, and made them easier to use than the others.
And there is their marketing - well, Jobs' - genius.
Jobs made the smartphones sleek, stylish and into a fashion statement and luxury product. Apple's market share is dwarfed by Android's, but Apple's profitability makes the Android people look like peasants.
I'm sure they are working up a neurocannula down there in Cupertino...the iJack
Without Steve Jobs Apple is just like Microsoft
No matter how you hate Steve Jobs, that guy is the one with the radical views
The world already got its walkmans for decades but it was Steve Jobs who knew he could do much better than the Sony Walkman (and all the copycats) and iPod was the answer
There were already smartphones (actually what was available before iPhone should not be categorized as smartphones, they were more like featurephones than smartphones) with the a-z keyboard on the keypad
It was Steve Jobs who moved the keyboard from the keypad to the screen
Let's compare Bill Gates with Steve Jobs
Bill Gates is from a very wealthy family, with a mother who knows people in high places
Steve Jobs is adopted. His birth dad is from Lebanon, and after knocking up his birth mother, abandoned his birth mother and went back alone to the Middle East
That is why Steve was put up for adoption because his birth mother couldn't bring up a son on her own
Steve Job's adopted parents are middle class people. Financially stable, but in no way can be compared to the wealth of Bill Gates' family
Bill Gates was enrolled into the first class university, and dropped out - he dropped out because he has no fear, after all, he got his wealthy family to fall back on
Steve Jobs didn't make it to first class university - there wasn't enough $$$ anyway. His 'university' is Reed College in Portland, Oregon
When Steve Jobs dropped out, he did not have a $$$ filled family to support him, he needed to find the money himself
When Bill Gates created Microsoft he could afford to rent comfortable office space and hire people --- Bill Gates got so much money that he could even afford to buy a program, called QDOS, from Tim Paterson
On the other hand, Steve Jobs started Apple with his pal, Wozniak, in a garage
Bill Gates' successful break was from his mom's link to IBM's hotshot
Steve Jobs' break is based on his ingenuity and determination
Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple once - and without Steve Jobs around, Apple Inc turned into a pool of Apple jam - they actually brought out a dud - the Apple Newton
Only when the Apple Inc was in rock bottom that they brought Steve Jobs back --- and promptly with Steve's Macintosh Apple rebound
Microsoft ? With or without Bill Gates Microsoft will still be Microsoft, because Bill Gates, unlike Steve Jobs, has little or no vision
On the other hand, Apple with Steve Jobs is a jar of Apple jam
Since the departure of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc hasn't come up with any new stuff that make sense - all it got is iteration of the same-old-shit, iPad and iPhone, that's all
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I think the iPhone was successful before they supported 3rd party apps. They already had the entertainment basics built in - which at the time meant playing your iTunes collection on your phone. But yeah, 3rd party apps are what prevented Microsoft from copying the iPhone and stealing the business. Apple won that one by playing one of Microsoft's games - lock in the developers and let them sell your system for you.
Microsoft tried to use Windows 8 to do that. They were able to count on selling Windows 8 to new PC buyers - and they figured that would get the deveopers back from Apple. Hasn't worked out, though. The desktop didn't need new phone apps.
In fact, other than the apps that are already there, desktops today may as well be Chromebooks. That's why Mac sales are also booming. Most home PC users are just using them for the web, email and streaming video. PC's, Macs and Chromebooks do all of these equally well. PC's still win for users that need 3rd party apps - and for gamers. Macs are fine if the particular 3rd party apps you need happen to be there. And even Linux is fine if the only 3rd party app you need is Office - and you find LibreOffice compatibility good enough for your needs.
For everybody else, Chromebooks get the job done. Even if many Slashdotters can't wrap their minds around that, Microsoft can. That's why they're trying to kill off Chromebooks with an equivalent stripped-down Windows platform. Not sure if it even matters any more, though, since it's the change in how PCs are used, not the specific competitor, that's changed the landscape.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...