It's all in the details: Where do MSFT, Google and Apple Make their $$

These charts taken together tell a more complete story.

Apple

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Microsoft

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Google

Microsoft-Google-Apple: Observations on their future potential

Here's a video that provides additional information on the growth potential and challenges facing the three companies that we have discussed during the course. Take a look at it and offer your own comments and observations.

Apple Versus Google: Beyond High-level Comparisons

We will examine the areas of competition and cooperation between Apple and Google on Wednesday. Here's a magazine article from Business Week that provides some relevant color commentary on this rivalry. Again, as we discussed in the class, the table 'Same but Different" is interesting at a general level but is not as insightful from a strategy point of view. There have been recent attempts to arrive at comparative analysis between Google and Apple (and in some cases involving other companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo and others). Here's a NY Times blog post focused on a 'big-picture' look. Again, I believe that the Table (reproduced below) is interesting at a general (popular) level but can be more insightful.

See how you can develop a comparative analysis that can bring out the subtle but significant areas of similarities and differences between Apple and Google from a strategy point of view.

Microsoft's Upcoming Challenges

Microsoft had successfully outmaneuvered many challenges in the past; the author of this article questions Microsoft's ability and agility in meeting new market challenges. Four concerns were referenced:

• Continue Selling Windows 7
• Gain more market share in smartphones' OS
• Watch out for Google
• Grow the Bing search engine

These recommendations seem closely tied to Microsoft's ability to control the next (and current) generation of computer technology. To remain competitive, Microsoft must expand the capabilities of it's OS and seek to grow in upcoming substitutes to traditional computers (e.g. smartphones). It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will be able to do this successfully in the coming years.


(edited by Venkat by placing the link as a hyperlink within the body of the blog).

Microsoft's Creative Destruction

In the latest battles of innovation, e.g. Amazon Kindle vs Apple iPad, iPhone vs Blackberry, Facebook vs Twitter nobody seems to mention the name that was associated with bringing us the future for a long time - Microsoft. Consider these contradictions -

• A clumsy, uncompetitive company, tarnished image due to 1990s antitrust prosecution, and inept marketing
• A company with $100 billion in cumulative profits in last 10 years, largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, luxury of not one but three CTOs

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. In fact, some former senior employees think that the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers. Internal competition has been uncontrolled and destructive. "It has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence." Examples of suffered projects include MS-Office on Microsoft's Tablet PC in 2001, Potential of ClearType on any screen.

Finally, it is not an accident that almost all the top Microsoft executives in charge of their music, e-books, phone, online search and tablet PC efforts over the past decade have left the company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?hp

Consumers Impact on IT Strategy

In reading Bill Gates' Memo "The Internet Tidal Wave" sent to Microsoft employees on May 26th, 1995 I was struck by the quote:

"Amazingly, it is easier to find information on the Web than it is to find information on the Microsoft Corporate Network. This inversion where a public network solves a problem better than a private network is quite stunning"

As early as '95 we see the impact that consumers have on IT strategy at the enterprise level. How individual users engage with technology has a profound effect in the ways in which companies' innovate. Internally, a staff that is accustomed to instant connectivity and infinite storage capabilities will come to expect that in the organization they work for. Externally, consumers changing the ways in which they communicate with one another, research and make purchases forces enterprise to evolve in the same manner.

Crucial to our discussion of IT Strategy are consumers. No longer can enterprise solely dictate the path in which innovation occurs. Consumers have considerable impact and control of the path in which IT Strategy will evolve.

Microsoft's 'Three Screens and the Cloud" Vision

Here are two videos that provide some context and elaboration to the phrase--'Three Screens and the Cloud." 


Ray Ozzie's articulation of the vision:





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Here's how a financial services company uses the idea to create channel integration approach to service delivery:

Commoditization of PCs

Here are three WSJ articles that show the increasing trend toward the commoditization of PCs and the profit of the home computer/laptop stack being further pushed toward the software and chip layers.

PCs sales were up over 22% for the holiday quarter, year to year. This drove strong earnings for Microsoft and Intel. However, PC manufacturers like HP and Dell saw only single digit growth.

The Hotness of Windows 7 (Microsoft earnings)

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/01/28/the-hotness-of-windows-7/

Asian Techs Rally on Intel

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003713185330320.html

Windows 7 Fails to Boost Profits of PC Makers

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704343104575034233214601248.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews