How do any differences in the business model cause or justify bad design/integration in either their web experience or software products? Duplicating popular s

How do any differences in the business model cause or justify bad design/integration in either their web experience or software products? Duplicating popular software in higher volume isn't a burden on design, is it? I fail to see why popularity should be an excuse for mediocrity. The distribution methods and relationships with customers differ a great deal, but both companies develop software, some of it very similar in purpose, and both also sell hardware. The problems outlined in the email were not related to problems integrating with others' hardware, so lack of ability to integrate with that isn't an excuse (this time). I think it is the ice cream comparison that's the unfair one. Software sold in volume is a high margin business. With 80% market share there is neither the justification nor the excuse for the sort of blunders outlined in the email. Unlike ice cream, there are no physical ingredients to cut corners with. It's doubtful that things that compromised quality saved them any money at all. What resource did they lack? It's not as if they were a hardware business operating on razor-thin margins to get market share and cutting corners to break even. They've got revenue, they've got cash, they've got many talented engineers. They spent about 9 times as much as Apple on R&D in 2007, about 7 times as much in 2009. Considering how often Apple has major OS updates, and introducing new/updated hardware designs, it seems like MS isn't producing as much fruit for the R&D money. Did I miss something? R&D From the 10K filings with SEC Microsoft USD 9 billion in 2009 https://investor.shareholder.com/msft/EdgarDetail.asp https://investor.shareholder.com/msft/EdgarDetail.asp? CIK=789019&FID=1193125-09-158735&SID=09-00 Apple USD 1.3 billion in 2009 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File? item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTg1OTB8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM=&t=1