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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.”
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Friday January 30 2015, @08:14PM
Apple didn't build a new OS, they bought NeXT and got NeXT/OPENstep.
The big realization which Apple had was that the technological support wasn't good enough for tablet computers for the general public to accept --- they looked around for a device which they could build and chose to do the iPhone (again, using OPENSTEP as the basis for the OS) --- then, once battery and other technologies were good enough, they made the iPad.
Microsoft's problem was a continuation of Go Corporation's --- they assumed that people would love the machines enough to put up w/ the limitations of battery life and would be willing to tether themselves at need to a wall outlet.
William
(who has finally replaced his Newton --- w/ an Asus Vivotab Note 8 running Windows 8.1)
(Score: 2) by emg on Friday January 30 2015, @09:15PM
And what does the iPad/iPhone interface have to do with NeXT?
Some of us have actually used both NeXT machines and iPads.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday January 30 2015, @10:16PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?