Why Microsoft outplays Apple long term

@68 “Dude, what, for example, was the iPod/iTunes phenomenon, if not recognizing and leading change?

Ballmer apes change, Jobs creates it.”

Uhhhh,..please tell me you aren’t suggesting that this technology did not exist before Apple released the iPod. And that the features on the iPhone didn’t exist before the iPhone released. Apple is doing nothing different than what they did after Jobs visited PARC in 1979.

“Uhhhh,..please tell me you aren’t suggesting that this technology did not exist before Apple released the iPod.”

If you can’t tell the difference between invention and innovation, there isn’t much I can do to help you. Apple is not in the invention business.

“And that the features on the iPhone didn’t exist before the iPhone released.”

Obviously, you think Apple is in the ‘features’ business. You really are oblivious to what has made AAPL a $115 billion business in about 5 years, aren’t you?

Get a clue.

“Uhhhh,..please tell me you aren’t suggesting that this technology did not exist before Apple released the iPod.”

If you can’t tell the difference between invention and innovation, there isn’t much I can do to help you. Apple is not in the invention business.

“And that the features on the iPhone didn’t exist before the iPhone released.”

Obviously, you think Apple is in the ‘features’ business. You really are oblivious to what has made AAPL a $115 billion business in about 5 years, aren’t you?

Get a clue.

Yawn… spoken like a true corporate kiss-ass living in the past. Developers want/need openness, not t-shirts, stickers and “free” (hah!) dev tools, and MS isn’t delivering any more then Apple.

That’s how MS got 90% market share? Now that’s rewriting history…

Rick: MS is a LOT more open than Apple is. Windows Mobile has a solid API, a solid runtime, and tons of apps shipping on it.

Jesus christ I really need to stop reading this weblog. There’s so much wrong with just this one post, I’m amazed.

Robert, you’re not a programmer and never will be. Why do you think you’re qualified to write about the developer relations different companies carry out?

Xcode is free with every copy of Mac OS X, Visual Studio costs money. Microsoft t-shirts and stickers suck. If you ask Microsoft evangelists hard questions they dodge them and get defensive and pissy the way you do, Robert.

Microsoft got market share from breaking the law and getting lucky (remember IBM and DOS?). How you could fail to mention that in a discussion of market share is beyond me. Does it bother you that you worked for a company that repeatededly, intentionally broke the law for years?

Apple’s developer documentation is much higher-quality. MSDN sucks. You don’t know about these things because you aren’t a programmer. You don’t understand why a language that is merely “Java done right” with 80+ keywords and more on the way is uninspiring.

Bill Gates’s keynotes suck and the people that prepare them should be fired, not praised.

To say that MS is more open than Apple is is laughable. You don’t know why IronRuby is going to take a long time to release, but a major factor is that Microsoft fires anyone who looks at open source/free software code. How is that open?

Go ahead and defend the convicted monopolist megacorporation if you want, fatty.

metacircular: Microsoft gives away a free version of Visual Studio.

Apple’s developer documentation is higher quality? Not according to any of the iPhone developers I talked with tonight.

Microsoft got its market share by serving developers, and making shrewd business decisions. It wasn’t until the late 1990s when they started breaking the law. By then they had monopoly market share.

This isn’t about open source.

Have you looked at the iPhone? Really?

Were you an Apple developer back in 1989? Do you remember how bad the developer tools were compared to Microsoft’s tools? I do. I don’t need to be a developer. I know plenty of developers who lived through those cycles.

And anyone who pulls out “fatty” as an insult doesn’t deserve to be listened to. Go back to Digg. It’s pretty obvious you are an idiot.

metacircular: Microsoft gives away a free version of Visual Studio.

Apple’s developer documentation is higher quality? Not according to any of the iPhone developers I talked with tonight.

Microsoft got its market share by serving developers, and making shrewd business decisions. It wasn’t until the late 1990s when they started breaking the law. By then they had monopoly market share.

This isn’t about open source.

Have you looked at the iPhone? Really?

Were you an Apple developer back in 1989? Do you remember how bad the developer tools were compared to Microsoft’s tools? I do. I don’t need to be a developer. I know plenty of developers who lived through those cycles.

And anyone who pulls out “fatty” as an insult doesn’t deserve to be listened to. Go back to Digg. It’s pretty obvious you are an idiot.

As to my qualifications: I worked on a computer programming magazine (BasicPro, then Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal. Then moved to planning conferences for programmers). This was all starting in 1992. I had a front-row seat to how Microsoft gained market share. I was back stage during Access 1.0 and Office 1.0 launches. Much of my career has been working with programmers and studying why they do the things that they do.

Many many programmers came up to me today at the Apple event and said I was right.

Go read Dori Smith. She’s been in the programming community a LONG time. http://www.backupbrain.com — she says she’s been saying exactly this about Apple for years. That they HURT developers by not showing up and by being secretive.

She’s not the only one.

“she says she’s been saying exactly this about Apple for years.”

And she’s angling for a job at Apple? Coincidence? You be the judge.

Mac is always trying to go it alone. there is cbit and other tech fairs and there is “Mac world”. They’re on their own planet and at the same time tryin to “be in everyhousehold and living room”, come on, with 5% market and tools only perfessional service people know how to fix? Microsoft goes with every PC and laptop and people like me can make it work with any hardware i want in my box, that’s why 90% of the world uses it.
As for phones and palms, Windows moble is everywhere but where is Mac? only eventually in the iphone. when it comes down to it not every one wants the “hip” thing, we just want it easyly avalible and on any platform we like and the is where Windows wins yet again.

Mac is always trying to go it alone. there is cbit and other tech fairs and there is “Mac world”. They’re on their own planet and at the same time tryin to “be in everyhousehold and living room”, come on, with 5% market and tools only perfessional service people know how to fix? Microsoft goes with every PC and laptop and people like me can make it work with any hardware i want in my box, that’s why 90% of the world uses it.
As for phones and palms, Windows moble is everywhere but where is Mac? only eventually in the iphone. when it comes down to it not every one wants the “hip” thing, we just want it easyly avalible and on any platform we like and the is where Windows wins yet again.

Your history’s faulty. I do remember 1989 and Apple had no sort of lead at all. The world was ruled by DOS and Apple was a minor player. The Mac has never had a commanding lead in the market. It’s never crossed beyond 20% market share at the best.

Apple are overated. All you apple fans talk up so much how good they are but seriously. Iphone.
-2g talk about SLOW!
-only one network. great…..
-copy + paste? anyone? but its so useful?(especially when you dont have a keyboard) nope? ok.

OS X is fine if you want to use the web or listen to some music but once you get into the real world hardly any appz work. Where I work at a large University they just gave the go ahead to stop getting macs. They dont work with SO many things that employees use.

How about apple make a real App like exchange? rather than making an OS where all the hard things have already been done by unix and you just build ontop of it.

market share anyone? how many macs are used? yeah exactly.

goodluck to the over-hyped over-priced over-rated iphone

Robert,

All the talks I’ve been having Microsoft recently are ALL about reaching out into the community. The conversations about actual products are very much secondary.

There’s a social side to MSFT that Apple just does not have.

I agree with you that Apple have a huge opportunity with the iPhone. We’ll see how long they can keep hold of it.

Ooops. Meant to say, “All the talks I’ve been having WITH Microsoft…”

Robert, you may be correct that it is in Apple’s interest to attend more of these type of development conferences.

But, it is a bad inference from of Apple vs. Microsoft OS battle of the 80 and 90′s to draw such a conclusion. The article would have been better had you focussed on what Apples says is in its best interests and then shown how by not showing up at these development conferences, Apple is misunderstanding its best interests.

Here is why the inference is bad. The OS battle is largely misunderstood. But, you in fact provided the correct clues to why Apple lost the OS war in terms of market share.

You said about OS/2 ” I had it loaded and I kept being forced back to Windows cause Windows had more apps and everyone around me had those same apps.”

Same experience with a Mac machine. Jobs recently made the same remark -more people were using non-Mac software and network effects largely confined Mac users to environments outside IT departments. Jobs seems resigned to that reality for the Mac continuing.

It is worthwhile to note, also, some of the losers in the computer PC hardware business: IBM, Compaq, etc.

The apps weren’t there because MS was “kind” to developers. Remember all the MS vaporware announcements? But the number of apps overwhelmed the buying public, who wanted, in effect, a Turing machine for a computer. Despite only using 2-3 apps, the public generally accepted that it “needed” a machine capable of doing anything.

(One might argue, that, MS actually “lost” the OS war in that its biggest competitor is itself -getting those pesky window’s 95, 98 and XP users to upgrade.)

Jobs et. al. have always been about reducing individual choice, eg the human interface restrictions. Now they are consciously producing digital gadgets and not Turing machines.

The iPod was a success because it was a well designed gadget that fit pretty much with what people wanted it do, in an elegant manner, and provided individuals with the ability to pay for music online.

Are mobile phones gadgets or Turing machines? Is the browser an acceptable interface to the OS, or do you need a SDK for a mobile phone? Is an iPhone a mobile phone/browser or is a wireless tablet? Apple has made its bet, consistent with its past decisions. Whether they are right or wrong has little to do with they are “friendly” with developers, or not.

Robert, you may be correct that it is in Apple’s interest to attend more of these type of development conferences.

But, it is a bad inference from of Apple vs. Microsoft OS battle of the 80 and 90′s to draw such a conclusion. The article would have been better had you focussed on what Apples says is in its best interests and then shown how by not showing up at these development conferences, Apple is misunderstanding its best interests.

Here is why the inference is bad. The OS battle is largely misunderstood. But, you in fact provided the correct clues to why Apple lost the OS war in terms of market share.

You said about OS/2 ” I had it loaded and I kept being forced back to Windows cause Windows had more apps and everyone around me had those same apps.”

Same experience with a Mac machine. Jobs recently made the same remark -more people were using non-Mac software and network effects largely confined Mac users to environments outside IT departments. Jobs seems resigned to that reality for the Mac continuing.

It is worthwhile to note, also, some of the losers in the computer PC hardware business: IBM, Compaq, etc.

The apps weren’t there because MS was “kind” to developers. Remember all the MS vaporware announcements? But the number of apps overwhelmed the buying public, who wanted, in effect, a Turing machine for a computer. Despite only using 2-3 apps, the public generally accepted that it “needed” a machine capable of doing anything.

(One might argue, that, MS actually “lost” the OS war in that its biggest competitor is itself -getting those pesky window’s 95, 98 and XP users to upgrade.)

Jobs et. al. have always been about reducing individual choice, eg the human interface restrictions. Now they are consciously producing digital gadgets and not Turing machines.

The iPod was a success because it was a well designed gadget that fit pretty much with what people wanted it do, in an elegant manner, and provided individuals with the ability to pay for music online.

Are mobile phones gadgets or Turing machines? Is the browser an acceptable interface to the OS, or do you need a SDK for a mobile phone? Is an iPhone a mobile phone/browser or is a wireless tablet? Apple has made its bet, consistent with its past decisions. Whether they are right or wrong has little to do with they are “friendly” with developers, or not.

The lack of love for developers should be a massive concern for those stock holders in the apple orchard. I know people were pretty upset by the safari only web apps for the iphone, and now they refuse to rep? They should step out of the sharper image hallogen spot light and refocus their spotlight on what matters. The developing community that will make or break their future.

Not sure why the surprise, this is Apple’s traditional (and proven)business model – make a new market with a closed value chain and then sit back and cream c 10 – 20% of the game you created into perpetuity with a massive surplus.

Whats not to like if you’re Apple?

PS I use Wintel / open source in preference, but I admire the Apple strategy. And *someone* needed to kick the phone handset manufacturers in the pants……..

@87 “If you can’t tell the difference between invention and innovation, there isn’t much I can do to help you. Apple is not in the invention business.”

By that definition either is MS. Now, we can debate who does “innovation” better. Clearly Apple does, but then again they control both the hardware and the software (what was someone saying about openness?). But, I guess one’s man’s “apeing” is another man’s “innovation”

Well no matter who from Microsoft was there, at least someone was there. It is not easy being a mobile developer and now you have to find things out about Apple iphone development from other blogs like this one and on Real Tech by Burning Bird: http://realtech.burningbird.net/devices/hello-iphone/

We work with the Microsoft emerging business team as a SaaS partner and although it seems like it takes an eternity sometimes to get things done, we do get some perks and special development support….and hoepfully some marketing support soon as well. They are at least trying….but having worked with large companies before, I know you have to have the patience of a saint. Marc Andreessen says it well on his The Moby Dick theory of big companies post: http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-3.html.

@92.”As to my qualifications: I worked on a computer programming magazine (BasicPro, then Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal. Then moved to planning conferences for programmers)”

Isn’t that sort of like saying Roger Ebert can be an Academy Award winning movie director?…afterall he must know his stuff; he writes about it. Sheesh!

@92.”As to my qualifications: I worked on a computer programming magazine (BasicPro, then Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal. Then moved to planning conferences for programmers)”

Isn’t that sort of like saying Roger Ebert can be an Academy Award winning movie director?…afterall he must know his stuff; he writes about it. Sheesh!