[Sigia-l] Microsoft way vs Apple way

[Listera]

Eric Scheid:

> no mention of the xbox though.

Well, this is the conundrum for the Microsoft way, isn't it?

If you do everything yourself, including hardware, then you no longer have a
"platform" strategy. You piss off your current/potential partners that
depend on you to provide the platform so they can have at least the crumbs
left over. 

If you read the pronouncement from Redmond at the start of the iPod
phenomenon attacking the Apple way, this point was explicitly highlighted by
the MSFT execs: you buy into the MSFT platform (DRM, WMA, etc) then you get
"choice" in the form of many online music services and digital media
players.

That's the classic MSFT way: The platform's engine is controlled by MSFT and
hardware/services that run on it are provided by partners. It worked for
decade in the enterprise, the technological aspects of which run like a
Soviet-era shoe factory in most places.

The iPod exposed the futility of the MSFT way in the consumer arena (which
has a larger growth potential than business, BTW). When parts of a user
experience (listening to music) all come from disparate sources each with
their own different R&D spending, rate of innovation, marketing savvy, etc.,
you can't keep pace with an end-to-end integrated system like
iPod/iTunes/iTMS from a single source.

So Rio is out of the game, Napster is in financial trouble, Creative is
whining about not being able to match Apple's Flash prices, MSFT has already
subsidized Real for about $800MM in soft money, Yahoo doubled its
subscription price today, many MSFT-dependent services like Virgin,
Wal-Mart, BestBuy, etc have been busts. Clearly this ain't working.

How does this relate more closely to what we do? You can't rely on others
for the parts of the business that drive your core competencies. I get to
see business plans for startups whose business depends 100% on a single
"platform" provider (mostly Yahoo, Google, eBay or Amazon). When I ask what
happens when the "platform" shifts, I often get thoroughly unsatisfactory
answers. It's risky to build an architecture solely on the flow of
info/data/customers/links/services from a single source that's much larger
than yourself so you have no hope of buying off or switching from. How much
of your destiny can afford to outsource to others?

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.