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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Microsoft: Et tu, Apple?

Ah, Robert X. Cringely. How I love to read the words wafting off your personal computer (be it Mac or PC). Here's what he has to say about Apple, not Google, being Microsoft's chief threat today::

Microsoft is totally obsessed with Google because Bill Gates is obsessed with Google. In a way, Bill needs a bogeycompany like Google to motivate the troops, since they are no longer being wowed by Microsoft's stock performance.

I hope Google does pull off a couple more spectacular product feats, but I won't be all that surprised if they don't. It will take the company another five years just to mature the businesses they already have.

So it could be that Google isn't the Microsoft-killer many people -- including Gates and Ballmer -- fear the company is. Going a step further, it is even possible that Gates's conviction that he'll eventually be taken down by a startup is wrong, too.

I think Microsoft's clearest threat still comes from Apple, though not the way most people expect. Yes, Apple is about to take Microsoft to the woodshed when it comes to Internet movie distribution. Yes, Apple already super-dominates the music player market where Microsoft doesn't even really exist. But the real jewel is one Microsoft has to lose, not gain -- the PC platform, itself.

Ahem. I don't always agree with the enigmatic Mr. Cringely, but he usually delivers in the interesting reading department. And while I don't totally believe that Apple has what it takes to unseat Microsoft, God would I love to see that happen. And let me offer a bit in the way of corroborating ... opinion.

Yes, a company called Apple has been around for decades and decades, longer even than Microsoft. But it wouldn't be a mistake to call today's Apple a "startup". After all, it really began life in 1997, after the palace coup in which NeXT took over Apple and Steve Jobs returned to the company. Oh, I'm sorry. You thought that Apple bought NeXT? You're so cute. [That sensation you felt was me virtually tweaking your nose.]

So. This new Apple, the Apple we all know and love for NeXTStep 2001 (er, Mac OS X), the iPod, and iTunes, this is a relatively new company. It is much smaller and faster than the old Apple, and it makes much, much better decisions than the roasted carcass it replaced. In other words, this company is indeed a startup.

And if we accept that fact--and we should--then it isn't so crazy to believe that Microsoft might, in fact, fall to Apple. After all, Bill Gates himself believes a company like Apple is what his company should fear the most. Maybe he's right. And maybe it's all the more true because he's wasting so much time and energy worrying about that red herring Google.

Maybe.

[ Posted at 8:10 PM | Permalink ]