Quote: "Oh please. Apple's market cap is roughly $3 billion, while Microsofts is over $270 billion. There is NO way Apple could "take" Microsoft."
Market share means nothing. Microsoft isn't yet making much of a turn over on the X-Box, but thier market share has risen by almost 100% in the past 12months.. With them passing a pre-emptive on the market with thier hardware, there is a strong tipping that it will topple Sony.
Nintendo before that had over 85% of the Console market, and they believed that Sega were thier biggest threat. Now look at it. Sega who were out-selling Nintendo in the early 90s is now desolved and divied up in to sections controled by Nintendo and Sony.
Sony have been the top console dogs for over 10years afte entering the market with what technically was a souped up 32bit SNES with CD-Rom...
Microsoft themselves have said it quite often. The trick to beating an opponent isn't to make something technically better, just to make something people want to use.
This is why Explorer is *still* used more than the other browsers, not because it's packaged with Windows. I remember a time when Netscape with AOL was installed and set as default. The reason it took over so quickly was because it was easier to use.
It didn't look like a science lab experiment it was simple to figure out what did what.
If Apple chose to, they could slash thier prices in half and they would make a killing. Remember when the iMac's first came out, they were popular as hell despite the expensive price tag.
Apple made a deal with Microsoft quite a long time ago, that they would produce for a nitché market, and Microsoft would leave them alone. At the time, it was a good deal for Apple.. right now with the ever growing Graphics Industry and Apple being the 'go to' guys when you want a powerhouse workstation that isn't going to break the bank. They have the potencial of becomming much more though.
Especially being able to boast thier computers have the same CPU/GPU as the latest consoles. Seriously that would be a huge selling point for gamers... and there are ALOT more console gamers than there are home computer users.
Consoles currently outnumber Home Computers 2:1. (No doubt one of the reasons Microsoft pushed for getting in to the whole console war)
This is something to clearly remember about Microsoft too.
Google might seem impressive right now, but they can't keep up the creative juices and technology edge forever. The company as a whole are also limited by thier market.
Microsoft are spreading themselves out. Sure the OS is still thier primary trump card, but they currently supply TV, PalmTop, Game Consoles, Music Centres, Servers, OS, Office, Games, Input Hardware, as well as partner in many many other areas.
Not to mention their divisions dedicated to development tools and help (which don't only support Windows, but MacOSX, Linux and any third party solution). Not forgetting they're also the innovators behind .NET and C#... two products that even Linux developers are having a bad time badmouthing.
You look around you and Microsoft's influence is everywhere. While thier OS remaning on top was what kept them in power ... the problem is for others that they've had the time to themselves not to just become complacent and not worry about competition, but to expand in to new territories.
Monopolies on Computers is one thing. Microsoft currently practical vie everyday with Sony for owning the digital age.
Google despite all the products, are still the same one trick pony. Relying on thier search engine algorithm.
Desktop Search, Web Search, Ad-sense by topic search, Web-Blogs, and Email.. Sorry but 90% of all ISPs provide you with an email account. Not 2GB of space, but honestly... who the hell gets 2GB of email?
Generally speaking I get around 2-3MB worth a day, most of which ends up in the junk filter. Most people I know also effectively only have a few real emails that don't end up in the junk filter.
Space is pretty irrelevant as unless you passing some new team built of your program or whatnot most ISP emails give you 30MB space, which is more than enough to get the email you want.
Microsoft themselve actually give you unlimited space. They just send you nasty warning emails saying you've gone over the limit, and to download the file within X (i think it's 7) days before they delete it.
I certainly as hell can't see of any real legal reason someone would need 2GB... not any that wouldn't have that person having thier own unlimited company email.
So what's left? Froogle? When you look at the grand scale of things, while the google moogles are getting rich... really that appears to be all they care about.
Microsoft this is a matter of Ego really, but for Google it's like.. They're making the cash, so meh!
