

The Real Difference Between Microsoft and Apple


After spending a lot of time recently with many of Microsoft's OEM partners and looking at its overall strategic view of the PC and tablet markets of the future, it has become clear to me that there is really a huge difference between how Microsoft and its partners view the computing market compared to the way Apple designs and markets its Macs and tablets.

In a sense, Microsoft approaches the market from the top down, while Apple goes after the market from the bottom up.

Microsoft centralizes its strategy around its belief that everyone needs tools for a wide range of productivity tasks regardless of who they are, and Microsoft and its partners, including Intel, are designing all of their products around this focus. Of course, productivity is Microsoft's sweet spot and in that sense a strong push to create productivity-focused products makes sense. This is why it keeps pushing the 2-in-1 concept so hard. Is it a tablet or is it a laptop?

Opinions As far as Microsoft is concerned, it doesn't matter to the customer. The tagline for 2 in 1s is that it is a PC when you need it and a tablet when you want one. It believes that in this product it can push the customer to cover all of their bases and hope that in the process these 2 in 1s revive the lagging PC market. The problem is that since the focus of these designs really emphasizes the productivity aspect of the experience, 2 in 1s turn out to be OK laptops and in many cases mediocre tablets.

On the other hand, Apple approaches the market from the bottom up. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in 2010, he put a huge emphasis on the fact that it was a "consumption" device first. In fact, he downplayed any possible productivity features, although he did hedge his bet by creating a version of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps for those who "might" want them. But when Apple created ads for the iPad they were all focused on consumption and only in the last 18 months have they even added the focus on the iPad as a serious "creation" tool.

Notice the distinct difference even in terminology. For Microsoft the term "productivity" is key to its marketing while Apple uses "creativity" instead. Microsoft shows ads of people mostly working while Apple shows ads of people doing cool things with their iPhones and iPads.

In a very good article on TUAW, Yoni Heisler notes the following:

As Microsoft continues its push to remain relevant in the mobile space, it still doesn't appreciate the factors that allowed Apple to enter a market it had no previous experience in, and turn that market on its head with the iPhone. Arguably blinded by the profits brought in by its Windows monopoly and its suite of productivity software, Microsoft still doesn't seem to fully comprehend how the iPhone was able to push established players like RIM to the brink of irrelevancy in just a few years.

As an illustration, here is Nadella's response to a question from Joshua Topolsky regarding Microsoft's strategy to sell more devices to consumers.

You're defining the market as "It's already done, Apple and Google have won, because they won the consumer side." And I'm going to question that. I'm going to say "No, any thinking consumer should consider Microsoft because guess what, you're not just a consumer. You're also going to go to work, you're also going to be productive and we can do a better job for you in there." And that's what I want to appeal to.

And therein lies the problem. Consumers primarily buy mobile devices that make their lives easier and more fun, work be damned. Microsoft Office wasn't available on the iPhone until June of 2013. An iPad version wasn't released until four months ago! And guess what, hundreds of millions of consumers bought iPhones and iPads anyhow.

Heisler captures the essence of the difference between Microsoft and Apple well. Microsoft is all about productivity while Apple wants to give people a break from work and let technology do cool things for its customers. While this may seem like just semantics, it actually drives a very different mental picture to consumers about how they view their devices. As Apple has proven, this approach is highly successful and brings into real question whether Microsoft's productivity push will even work.

In fact, Apple drives a solid line between productivity and content creation versus creativity and content consumption. Tim Cook and his team are adamant that when it comes to productivity, Macs are at the center. They have created some of the most innovative laptops, especially with the MacBook Air, and these products continue to defy the downward market trend in PCs. Every quarter Apple sells at least 4 million Macs worldwide. Apple then focused the iPads and iPhones on fun activities, and sold a massive amount of these products to very satisfied customers.

Of course, there is an actual dichotomy in the ultimate use of iPads in many people's lives. Although Apple designs its iPads as pure tablets, people and companies have found their own ways to use them for actual work and productivity. But ironically it was never at the center of Steve Jobs's design and its role as a productivity tool has come mostly from third-party products like external keyboards and companies and individuals creating apps and tools that allow them to adapt iPads and even iPhones for work when needed.

Satya Nadella's heavy focus on productivity is an interesting one and using 2 in 1s to bridge the gap between a laptop and tablet will be driving Microsoft's strategy forward. And with the goal of streamlining its OS, Microsoft is at least creating an OS environment that is less confusing than in the past. However, Apple has shown that there is great success in making great laptops, tablets, and smartphones with different goals in mind. However, if Microsoft continues down this heavy productivity road I suspect it will continue to be challenged in its quest to gain any serious ground against Apple and even Google, which at the moment has the lion's share of the mobile market. Apple's Macs and Google's  Chromebooks are seriously eating into the Windows market share and have changed the dynamics of the personal computing marketplace forever.

Further Reading

MacOS Reviews

About Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin

Read the latest from Tim Bajarin