Ken Berger's Profile

Apples apparent focus onthe iPhone is less about the iPhone and more about building a platform. The path the industry is on is more about building platforms than about a new OS for the Mac or PC's. Apple is still way ahead in this area than MS and Google (and to a lessor extent Adobe) while playing from a different angle are in the same game. The idea is to have a software platform that can work across a wide range of devices from smartphone to set top box to PC with the ability to move onto new hardware as segments develop. And this is where both Mac os and Win 7 are going and it is also where Apple is way far ahead of MS. Apples is moving to a model where a single development environment produces easily transportable applications with a common set of API's and support for cloud based services: Apples Model all based on Xcode and OS X: iPhone / iPod (light weight portable devices - can evolve to tablets and embedded surfaces) iTv (simple controls and powerful graphics - can evolve to game console etc) Mac OS (full computer OS with powerful server options) Mobile Me / iTunes (fully integrated cloud services for all platforms, un-reliable service, getting better but still not fully there yet) MS Model in disarray due to legacy code support, fractured development teams, lack of hardware control and integration and changing strategy: Windows Mobile (light weight out of date, and slow to evolve) Zune OS (ugly, small user base, proprietary not open) Windows 7 (cleaned up Vista) Windows Live (the ugly duckling of Cloud services but improving all the time, poor platform integration beyond windows) Apple is leading in all of these positions technically and in the growth area sections has the lead in terms of market mindshare. Microsoft has a lot of work to do and it is a very big boat to turn around (but they have done it before with the "internet Challenge"). Microsoft is best when the market is stable and their steady upgrade / fix development pays off, and their cash and market reach can be leverage to sideline their competitors. As long as the device market is moving fast it is hard for MS to keep up, but if it matures while they still have the desktop (OS/Office/Exchange) cash cow behind them they can bully / buy / build mindshare - market share. In today's battle the computer OS is the center but can't be an island. The platform on the web and across devices is the new paradigm.