Apple Officially Writes Off Microsoft, Moves Sights to Google
January 5th, 2010 at 4:17 PM - Columns and Opinions by Bryan Chaffin
I wrote off Microsoft long ago. Except the Mac Business Unit - I think Office for Mac is a great product. Seriously, though, under Steve Ballmer's leadership, Microsoft has largely floundered, moving from one blundered catch up project to another.
In a few short years, the company has gone from being a scary-ass giant that seemed certain to drown the tech world in a sea of mediocrity to an embarrassing old uncle with lots of money and dreams of faded glory shambling along in a pantomime of his past accomplishments.
Big Redmond -- and that analogy to IBM and its age of dominance no longer seems as apt as it once did -- is still dominant in PC operating systems, but who cares? The world, including Microsoft, follows what Apple is doing, leaving the company in the driver's seat in the PC world, even with its tiny, but growing, market share.
Microsoft is a bit player in the world of online music downloads and digital media devices, and is increasingly becoming a has-been in smartphones, despite (or maybe because of) having been an early player in that space. The Xbox platform is doing well, though, so rock on there. I think the company may even be close to making back all the money it has spent on that project.
Bing may turn out OK, though I strongly doubt it will unseat Google as the search king. Indeed, I'll be surprised if Bing can become even a strong second to Google in that arena.
And speaking of Google, I found it fascinating yesterday to see this graph from Changewave Research:
It's a customer satisfaction graph for smartphone operating systems. In this survey, there are precisely two OS developers with a majority of customers who really like ("Very Satisfied") their smartphones, and those two companies are Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android). RIM's BlackBerry, the platform that was once considered so über-awesome it was colloquially called "CrackBerry," is a distant third behind these two companies with a little more than a third of its customers in love with their devices.
And RIM is a smart company with lightyears more vision than Microsoft (shockingly dead last on this graph), and the best they can do is 41%?
That graph is a telling one in that it demonstrates that Google is a company, like Apple, capable of making products that people like. Like Apple (post-Steve's return), Google has had very few public missteps, and the products that see the light of day tend to be a hit with users. From Google.com to AdWords and AdSense, to Gmail, to Android, the company makes products (and services) that don't suck.
It's one of the reasons that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was (until recently) on Apple's board of directors, and one of the reasons Arthur Levinson sits on both company's boards. Steve Jobs and Mr. Schmidt respected each other and their respective visions, and both companies were seemingly fighting Microsoft in their respective markets.
Now, however, Google and Apple have some overlapping areas of competition. They both have browsers, they both have operating systems for computers, and they both have a smartphone operating system. I personally thought that it was only these areas of overlapping competition that lead to Mr. Schmidt resigning from Apple's board, but the Quattro purchase has made me rethink that notion.
If Apple is going to enter the market for mobile ads -- a move that I find curious, at best -- it suggests to me that Apple sees Google as its main competition going forward. It may have something to do with the unannounced tablet device, or it may be all about the iPhone, but with this purchase, Apple is saying it intends to be a player in the market that Google's Mr. Schmidt has publicly identified as the biggest ad market of the future.
And in doing so, Apple is signalling that Google is the competition, and not just in the smartphone OS market where Windows Mobile was never the target for Apple, but in the bigger picture.
I personally always liked the idea of an alliance between Apple and Google, two companies for whom mediocrity was never acceptable, but that was only because of the threat from Microsoft. Now, however, I'm thinking that competition between those two companies as leaders could be even more exciting as the two tech giants force the rest of the market to push for their own excellence.
If only Google believed in a Whole Widget approach, then we'd really have a great horse race.
Bryan Chaffin began using Apple computers in 1983 in a high school BASIC programming class. He started using Macs in 1990 when the Kinko’s guy taught him how to use Aldus PageMaker, finally buying a Power Computing Power 100 in 1995. Today, Bryan is the Editor of The Mac Observer, and has contributed to the print versions of MacAddict and MacFormat (UK).
41 Observer Comments
“an embarrassing old uncle with lots of money and dreams of faded glory shambling along in a pantomime of his past accomplishments.”
Brilliant, Bryan. Kudos.
We seen Microsoft on our iSlate.org site pretty often so their keeping an eye on Apple alright.
I think I just got a grammar sprain
Time for Arthur Levinson to pick one.
“an embarrassing old uncle with lots of money and dreams of faded glory shambling along in a pantomime of his past accomplishments.”
I could take that personally, if I had a lot of money 
“Seriously, though, under Steve Ballmer’s leadership, Microsoft has largely floundered, moving from one blundered catch up project to another.”
I wonder how much longer that he will be CEO.
Thanks, CP—and Geoduck, you cracked me up.
I wonder how much longer that he will be CEO
The real question is who, if anyone would want to replace Balmer. I think more people want to run GM than MS. There doesn’t seem to be a line of people jockeying for position to sit in the captains chair on the Titanic.
The real question is who, if anyone would want to replace Balmer. I think more people want to run GM than MS. There doesn’t seem to be a line of people jockeying for position to sit in the captains chair on the Titanic.
What is Spindler up to, or perhaps Scully?
The trouble with MS is that it’s got too many irons in the fire. Too many projects that aren’t doing well enough to make money but are distracting attention from the core business, and have highly placed patrons that won’t let them get cut.
What MS needs is a Gil Amelio. Someone that would weald a savage ax on the dead wood, prune the MS structure down to the bare essentials and not care if anyone liked him or not. Then after a year or two he would walk out the door (with a hefty severance package) and let someone come in that could run the company.
Not that I’m volunteering or anything.
Someone that would weald a savage ax on the dead wood
Read that bit again, carefully. Maybe the grammar sprain caused collateral damage to the spelling module. <GG> Of course, it would also be better if “that” were replaced by “who.”
geoduck said:Someone that would weald a savage ax on the dead wood
Read that bit again, carefully. Maybe the grammar sprain caused collateral damage to the spelling module. <GG>
You’re right, it should be wield.
I hate homonyms.
Well you would use an axe on a weald, a forest, and MicroSoft is full dead wood.
I think I just got a grammar sprain
You should try reading MacNN!
I thought Arthur Levinson already resigned from Google’s board.
For all the Ballmer blaming boys, let’s see how apple fares after S Jobs is gone. Also, discount a competitor like MS at your own peril. They still make the billions required to unseat any other company - a few good products and they will be at the throats of all the apple “bankrupt revived by Microsoft” fellas. Accept it, u owe MS a life
No-one is discounting Microsoft completely - but it is less relevant than before.
And (except for SQL Server, which is very good, even if it is Sybase in drag), Microsoft has arguably never made any good products. It makes “good enough” products. It’s been sufficient up to now. But in the next ten years?
“For all the Ballmer blaming boys, let’s see how apple fares after S Jobs is gone.”
Well, Steve Jobs is not gone yet, and even if he were to go soon, there are plenty of capable people at Apple who could take his place. Remember SJ’s leave of absence between January and June? Tim Cook and Phil Schiller did a great job of running Apple while Jobs was away (Tim Cook is the one who actually runs Apple’s daily operations anyway). Scott Forstall is the logical successor to Jobs on the tech side and Jonathan Ive isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Apple will just fine when Steve is gone; can you say the same about MS?
Probably not.
For all the Ballmer blaming boys, let’s see how apple fares after S Jobs is gone. Also, discount a competitor like MS at your own peril. They still make the billions required to unseat any other company - a few good products and they will be at the throats of all the apple “bankrupt revived by Microsoft” fellas. Accept it, u owe MS a life
Talk about getting a grammar sprain.
Uhh, where’s Nokia on that list of mobile devices? You know, that little company with half or more of the worldwide smartphone market?
Give the QT platform a couple of years for developers to get familiar with and the relatively free OS will be better still.
Windows Mobile is not dead yet.
Give the QT platform a couple of years for developers to get familiar with and the relatively free OS will be better still.
A few years is a life time.
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We seen Microsoft on our iSlate.org site pretty often so their keeping an eye on Apple alright.