[jimray]

I dug up Apple's reorg announcement from 1997, where Steve Jobs was officially brought on as an "advisory" role to then-CEO Gil Amelio.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.inf...

Obviously, Apple and Microsoft are different companies and looking back 16 years with the benefit of hindsight is a bit unfair.

And yet, even in the announcements, you can see a difference. Apple's is shorter, more direct, bereft of details but not trying to be everything to everyone. Most important is an emphasis on getting back to basics, whereas Microsoft is promising "one strategy, one Microsoft" and then immediately rattling off a laundry list of "core products". When every one of those products is core, it's clear nothing is.