4 ms·
I think the OP is right, but you are misunderstanding. Jobs understands his business, but what products does Apple put out there for businesses? Microsoft has E
by varikin 15y ago
I think the OP is right, but you are misunderstanding. Jobs understands his business, but what products does Apple put out there for businesses? Microsoft has Exchange, Active Directory, .NET/C#/MVC, MSSql, plus many more products aimed at the enterprise. Apple makes consumer products and does it will. The iPhone/pad/pod, AppleTV, laptops, and desktops. They tried the server market with XServer, but that was discontinued this year.
I want to mention again .NET and C#. C# has become a cornerstone of the enterprise world, much like Java. You could say that Apple has XCode and Obj-c, but that doesn't really compete against .NET, except for desktop apps. But the focus of XCode lately has been iOS and .NET has been web apps. Of course this is a broad generalization.
Back to business needs. Microsoft is great at products for the businesses, and great at selling them to the businesses. They are also great at other things too, like XBox. I have had a feeling for a couple years now that there are departments with great product managers that put the product above the politics of a large corporation and upper management that shield the workers from the politics. Those departments end up with great products, like the XBox, Office (though I have heard Office just has the clout of being a big money maker to get whatever they want), Visual Studio/.NET/etc, Windows, and possibly IE (or at least the the current IE team). But reading about what happened with purchasing Danger to take on the iPhone stinks of to many people trying to tell Danger team what to do.
About the only place where Microsoft and Apple true stand toe to toe is the OS. Windows 7 looks great (I have only used it sparingly being a Mac/Linux guy) and OSX is great. I guess you could say the browser is another place. Both IE9 and Safari are good, but really, I think Firefox and Chrome have them beat.
How Microsoft can use this to their advantage is for someone else to figure out. Maybe splitting up would be good, or maybe they just need to say to hell with completing against Apple when in comes to consumer gadgets.
- bad_user 15y agowhat products does Apple put out there for businesses That's the beauty of it - they don't have to target businesses, because businesses buy their shit anyway. doesn't really compete against .NET Apple doesn't have to compete against .NET - Microsoft shot itself in the foot years ago by not building a Unix and by not taking advantage of the open-source ecosystem. You may say what you want about .NET, but go to any software or web-related conference, and you'll see more than half the room filled with Apple computers. Apple doesn't compete with .NET because it doesn't have to.
- krschultz 15y agoA huge percentage of crud business apps are .NET. That might not seem important (the 'boring' part of software development), but that just hooks a huge amount of business to the whole Windows platform.
- varikin 15y agoI don't care for MS, but I do grudgingly respect .NET from everything I have seen. And while it is hip to use Apple and run RoR, Django, Erlang, or any other next big language and stack, .NET is huge in the corporate world where the stack is decided based upon politics and who plays golf with who instead of by the developers. And yes, Apple doesn't compete with .NET, that was sort of my point. They different products to address different needs—iOS/desktop apps vs web based CRUD apps for insurance companies (example corporate industry).
- bad_user 15y agoThese alternative platforms for software development are actually eroding Microsoft's market share. It isn't just the hipsters that are deploying to Linux, it's the big guys too, like the London Stock Exchange.
- Raphael_Amiard 15y ago> These alternative platforms for software development are actually eroding Microsoft's market share. where is the data about that ?
- lotusleaf1987 15y agoWindows 7 is a decade behind OS X. Why does Apple need to worry about B2B? They sell consumer products--iPads, iPhones, iPods, Macbooks--that's where they make the bulk of their revenue/profits. The idea that it's valid to criticize Apple for not having enough B2B is like complaining that Fender doesn't make flutes. It just isn't their business.