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posted by martyb on Friday January 30 2015, @05:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the On-a-desk->In-a-Pocket->???? dept.

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.”

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday January 31 2015, @07:08AM

    by Immerman (3985) on Saturday January 31 2015, @07:08AM (#139759)

    I've heard of it, but I'm waiting to play until they implement cheat codes and quick-save functionality.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Saturday January 31 2015, @07:40AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday January 31 2015, @07:40AM (#139766) Homepage
    It's not all it's cracked up to be, you can tell that from the retention figures - none of the early players are still playing.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday January 31 2015, @05:11PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Saturday January 31 2015, @05:11PM (#139841)

      Maybe, but it's getting really good press - just look at how the subscription numbers have been exploding over the last few centuries. In fact I've heard rumors that most of the early players are actually still playing, they've just had to start new characters because permadeath is enabled on all the servers.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday February 01 2015, @11:08AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday February 01 2015, @11:08AM (#140017) Homepage
        Oh yeah, you can't fault the marketting. Positively exploding. Exponentially![*]

        [* And here I use the term in the unusual mathematical sense, which means "exponentially", rather than the derphead sense of "it's big, innit"]
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday February 01 2015, @06:43PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Sunday February 01 2015, @06:43PM (#140089)

          Well, it was for a while there - seems to be starting to plateau now. Standard sigmoid curve behavior, extremely common in systems when some change temporarily destabilizes the equilibrium state.