Now I begin to understand…

Windows has and always will be a piece of junk.

All but one of my extended family members has bought at least an iPad or an iMac in the last year since then.

Even my 95 year old mother bought an iPad 3. A six year old grand daughter taught her how to use it. I would have loved to watch that happening.

Microsoft, primarily, sells software to OEMs and Big Box Stores. They have a wee, money losing, hardware and consumer software business on the side.

OEMs sell to consumers, IT and CIO weenies, Windows PC shops and Big Box Stores.

You completely left out OEMs in your little Apple verses Microsoft story.

Apple isn’t chasing business. Business is chasing Apple.

Microsoft IT Weenies have just too much stroke to be replaced by Linux IT weenies.

Give it up.

Apple does make great products that the leadership, coders, designers and sales staff want to own. It’s the secret behind their success.

Microsoft makes decent software and fairly good hardware after the 5th or 6th generation.

They also make high end acquisitions that, with the exception of the Kinect, usually become big time write-offs.

As for their future, when everyone in business, except for the number crunchers, use hand held devices, Microsoft will be making Excel for Macs and cheap Android laptops.

That is me. I went from a simple iPod Touch 2nd gen, to a 4th gen, to iPad 2 (pre release) to a Mac to Apple TV.

The iPod was a gateway to Apple for me. When people ask me why, the answer is simple. “It all just works.” I elaborate and say that I got tired of working ~on~ my computer and wanted to work ~with~ my computer.

(Now my brother, cousin, a few friends, and mother have Mac’s, and the in-laws have have an iPad)

More important questions include: Can Microsoft successfully and profitably break into the tablet and smartphone markets? What are the trends for Microsoft products in the consumer and corporate markets – especially Windows, Office, and MS Exchange, the core products that tend to lock people into the Microsoft ecosystem?

Under SJ, Apple was committed to developing great products and focusing on the customer with the philosophy that sales and profits would follow. That focus on the customer *first* has been (and, hopefully, will continue to be) the difference between Apple and most other companies. The companies who focus on the dollar lose sight of the importance of their employees and customers. As a result, they fail to prosper like Apple.

Yes, Apple is a corporation with a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. I have no delusions that Apple is looking out for my welfare in some altruistic sense. However, Apple does employ a better approach in its search for profits, and those methods have proven to be wildly successful for over a decade.

It’s been JUNK from the day the first IBM PC Booted the first version of that animal. Someone should have used a sledge hammer to destroy it and the PC that booted it. The global technology world would be a much better place.

However, I am interested what will happen when MS requires the enterprise to upgrade to Windows 8 like OS. Our company just completed the forced upgrade to Windows 7. This should give us until Windows 10 until the next forced march.

I see two different companies reigning over two completely different markets. What’s the point in even comparing the two tech behemoths? Better to focus any comparison to the product level:
iPhone versus Lumia
iPod versus Zune
iPad versus Surface + Xbox (since iPad now attempts to be a gaming platform versus Microsoft’s successful Xbox, which has spawned a portable version called the Surface)
? versus Kinect
MacBook versus the laptop crowd
Mac Mini versus mid/entry-level consumer Windows desktops
iMac versus the all-in-one-crowd
- huge gap in Apple lineup versus every corporate Windows PC-
Mac Pro versus the Windows professional workstation crowd
- huge gap in Apple lineup versus Windows small business servers-
- huge gap in Apple lineup versus Windows corporate servers-
- niche product gap in Apple lineup versus Cray-level supercomputers-

Why does Apple not even try to take on Windows in the power end of the market? Does Apple not think it can defeat Windows at that scale?

When is Apple going to wake up and offer, or court developers of, any professional CRM software? POS software? SQL and database management systems? Business management and accounting? Hint: Quicken always seems to give Apple its sloppy seconds, and Apple is MIA on all this.

If “small business is the economic and labor engine” that politicians love to declare, then why isn’t Apple catering to them AT ALL?

I’ve seen something almost exactly like that somewhere before…

And they do seem to love the magnets – their TV commercial was one giant click-fest.

Apple sells copies of Windows?

The real question is – how do they work?!?

Whatever said and done consumer is the king and he will swing whichever way his pocket is going to take him. Very interesting times ahead for everyone.

Microsoft makes you feel like an indentured slave every time you use their product which increases the resentment towards them.

So his perception that Apple is like Mother Theresa is true – it’s all in the psychology of treating your customer well.

Microsoft sells more copies of Windows a day than Apple does in a week.

Their problems have nothing to do with their products. Their problems are in defining what their future is.

But I take your point. Apple has figured out how to do both – make great products and make great profits. A very tough act these days.

And then right after striking the iceberg, El Capitano’s voice blares on the ship’s speakers: “I see a torpedo with an Apple logo heading our way!”

Holes on top of holes for poor old SS Microsoft. Soon they’ll have to send Bob Ballard on board the Argo to look for Ballmer at the bottom of the ocean.

Apple makes products because of CUSTOMERS not profits !