Cooperate Cultures of Apple and Microsoft - Case Study Example

 Apple and Microsoft have always been extravagant and copious competitors in the emerging cooperate world of technology today. There are significant cooperate culture differences that make them peculiar and exclusive from each other. Each cooperate cultures has its pros and counterpoises. The cooperate culture of apple applauds and focuses on the client’s rather the developers and the trademark “Steve Job’s” approach is followed at every hierarchical structure and that is to focus on interface, outlooks, look, feel and aesthetics of the product rather than on the advanced technology. Similarly, “adaptive culture” is not present for the developers rather the marketers are more welcomed in Apple. The overall emphasis is not only laid upon the financial gain rather the support from the general public, still due to the policies and flexible cooperate culture triggered by Steve Jobs, the computer industry hold 9% of the share of Apple and 73% of the market share of the MP3 market is taken by Apple. The primary theme of Apple’s cooperate culture is the alignment of the workplace culture with the organizational needs. Focus is on innovation and novel idea implementation. The approach is inculcating risk but high strengths of gain along with transformation techniques to earn profit. (Glinow, 2002) The Cooperate culture at Microsoft mainly focuses on user friendly innovations and implementations. MS has not been able to produce new and innovative products since long time and this is considered to be the main loop hole in the cooperate culture within the organization. A part from Windows mobile phone and Xbox, the frequency of market releases is not much great as that of Apple and the reason behind this phenomenon is cooperate values. MS focuses on creating a product which is user friendly and focuses to satisfy the underlying needs by giving updates and new versions periodically. (Microsoft, 2010) Both the companies have taken competitive advantages by exploiting the negative points of each other’s cooperate culture. For example Apple takes the market edge in Youth because of their ample focus on aesthetics, style and outlook. The Apple’s I-pod culture is now being considered as a trade mark in the college life because of its bewitching and alluring designs. Microsoft holds a competitive advantage in the technological perspective and they have sound teams who are working day and night in order to produce the products compatible with the ever changing requirements of the mobile developers and state of the art applications. Similarly, Microsoft takes excessive competitive advantage by giving flexible applications and products that can run simply on any platform and adjust with the user requirements whereas that is not the case with Apple. Apple loses its profit in this domain because the cooperate culture of Apple is to focus on the “target markets” and market segmentation strategies are deployed at the organizational levels. Apple intends to produce devices for every age group separately and in a peculiar fashion. (Perry, 2012) As John Sculley, former CEO of Apple said that Apple does not focus on the core functionalities rather the primary emphasis is on look and feel. So this is the main reason why apple devices cannot run on different operating systems and platforms. Microsoft tends to lack the stability in the products, especially software releases and that is why the customers tend to lose the ease of use. The competitive advantages are different in every domain and each one company leads the other in one form or the other and vice versa. Similarly, Microsoft outdo the Apple in the third world because the products are of less cost and people can afford the products very easily whereas the cooperate culture of Apple makes it inevitable for the prices to be of high magnitude. (Discovery, 1980) Apple’s cooperate culture is likely to take a new twist after the death of Steve Jobs’ Jobs was the running spirit of the company but nevertheless, Apple has blossomed to a stage where personalities do not matter rather products do. A great change in the dynamics of productions is speculated because after the launch of i-phone 5, there was a problem with apple maps application. This shows that apple is trying to come up with new and innovative ideas not only in the hardware but also in the core software workings. There is a paradigm shift taking place in the Apple’s cooperate culture which is triggered by the high demand of the developers to focus on the platform issues and dependency problems. Apple will definitely continue to thrive and rather the production profits will enlarge if the software issues are handles properly and quickly. Microsoft is trying to come up with new ideas in the industry and windows 8 mobile and Tablet launch is the self parading example and manifestation of this change. No doubt there was a need for this hitch and Windows will touch new heights if they keep the pace of innovation and take some market place with immediate releases in order to cover up the decencies of the past. If Microsoft adds the aesthetics and beautiful interface designs In their upcoming products and also increase the frequency of the releases in the market then they will definitely have the competitive edge on the Apple products, especially in the first world where people and youth are looking to buy the devices which are not only strong technologically but also in the perspective of the interface. Similarly, as Ex-Executive director of Microsoft, Dick Brass has reflected in his numerous recent interviews, Microsoft was facing in-organizations team splits and hindrances while production of different products and devices. It is speculated after new initiatives of Bill Gates that these splits will be sorted out very soon. This will surely increase the time span delays between different product releases because every individual will focus to produce the products at his own circle of influence with more dedication and care without caring the workplace issues. IF such speculations are transformed in reality then there will be a massive breakthrough in the market shares of Microsoft in the near future globally. (Klein, 2005) References Discovery Channel (1980). Curiosity Expert: John Sculley : Discovery Channel. [online] Retrieved from: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/john-sculley.htm [Accessed: 27 Jan 2013]. Glinow, M. (2002). Organizational Culture. 2nd ed. The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2002. Klein, D. (2005). Emerging Technologies and Corporate Culture at Microsoft. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Microsoft (2010). Microsoft Corporate Citizenship Realizing Potential through People, . Perry, L. (2012). Building a Company the Steve Jobs’ Way: A Positive Deviance Approach to Strategy. University of Michigan. Read More