[ruraltechnocrat]

The problem with Microsoft hasn't been that they've never been able to inspire excitement with a product (remember currier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier, or Kinect) but rather their execution on those products.

Only half of Apple's genius is their design, the other half is their incredible execution machine, in large part thanks to the work that Tim Cook did. Microsoft used to have an incredible execution machine, with mediocre design. Now they are struggling with both.

Microsoft has gotten a lot better in design, particularly in the hardware space, but the questions is:

Does Microsoft have the needed DNA to align their incredible resources/brain power around a small set of products that will really make a difference for them?

Despite hololens and the surface products, this remains very unproven for me.

[stupidcar]

While I don't think Steve Jobs necessarily deserves the near-deification he's received posthumously, I do think that Apple benefited from having someone who was able and willing to push through particular design decisions no matter how difficult they were to achieve or whether they stepped on senior people's toes. I get the impression that, within Microsoft, the best interests of new and innovative products always came a distant third behind the vagaries of internal politics, and the desire of the Windows and Office teams to protect their turf.

I also think the success of their desktop monopoly in the 1990s and early 2000s caused Microsoft make the classic mistake of forgetting what business they were really in. They stopped thinking they were in the technology business, and started thinking they were in the PC business. Other devices and products like smartphones and tablets were OK, but only so long as they respected the PC's place as the centre of the computing universe. The idea that a new type of device and OS might eventually supplant the PC and Windows as the dominant consumer computing platform was heresy.

[petra]

Apple's competitive advantage is certainly isn't in supply chain management , many big electronic OEM's are very capable at that.

Their advantage we're in the combination of innovation, design and marketing, and their unique market power/position which give them unique powers over collaborators and suppliers which they knew how to smartly use to build new ecosystems.