Microsoft and Apple - Business Ideology - Case Study Example

Microsoft and Apple Introduction Microsoft and Apple Inc are two of the biggest s in computing today. Almost 100% market share of computer operating software is owned by these two companies. Microsoft occupies almost 90% and Apple occupies almost 8% to 9%. The remainder is mostly covered by Linux. Both companies are huge in size with Microsoft being significantly larger with 79,000 employees in the year of 2007. Apple sports a more modest almost 20,000 full and part time employees. Even though Apple may seem like no real competitor like Microsoft, but truth be told today Microsoft fears Apple like it fears no other competitor. Microsoft's intelligent and rather unfair business strategies have helped in making it the biggest name in the business by dominating every new comer on the market but Apple is the only company to have fought back. This is because of its large quantity of unusually fond customers who will not shift to any other operating software no matter how hard they try, and Microsoft has tried, and is still trying. Business Ideology Being such huge companies one would assume that they would have strict rules of what to wear and strict Sop's (standard operating procedures) but no. Both companies are innovation based. The directors of both companies know that if you want an employee to be very creative and innovative then you have to let them feel relaxed while working and they follow in this path themselves. The culture of both companies is one where every software developer would dream of working. Microsoft in particular takes out a lot of time and effort to hand pick new software developers out of good universities and trains them to extreme levels while spending a lot of money in making them satisfied with their jobs so they can in turn give something as good back to the company. Apple is no different. It is full of highly innovative professionals who know their work so well that they have moved the company from only being a computer and software related company to a full electronics and accompanied Software Company. Microsoft's basic ideology is to provide every customer the taste of Microsoft's innovation and excellence by making them use their software. The company's main goal is to have the whole world running their operating software in all types of electronic machines. At Microsoft, honesty, integrity and constructive self improvement is highly praised. Apple's base ideological principles are a little different, though mostly the same. they do not plan world domination, but instead believe on slow and steady progress in first making a piece of cutting edge and incredible stylish hardware, then designing a flawless operating software for it which is so pleasing for the user and is so graphic intensive that customers will never want to switch to any alternate. Branching out into the whole electronic goods market and inventing good solid consumer electronic goods across a range of markets is what Apple does best. Business Change The flagship Microsoft products are the Microsoft windows and the Microsoft office productivity suites. The current edition of Microsoft windows is Windows Vista and office suite is the Microsoft Office 2007. Released in early 2007, windows vista has come under a lot of criticism simply because of one reason, it is not perceived as being better compared to its predecessor, Windows XP, which was launched in 2001. Microsoft is adamant that Vista's new kernel and code written from scratch is the very thing which makes it unique and better but the bottom line for most users is that it takes up too much space on the hard disk, is not more productive than XP and even though it is much better in security, an issue which was extremely lacking in XP, the price for it is too high and as Vista is designed for the latest machines with at least a 2.8GHZ Intel compatible processor, a good high end graphics card and at least 2GB of RAM, the cost of hardware alone for most organizations is too much before they even think of buying the top spec version dubbed windows Vista Ultimate for their organizations. Microsoft's new windows mobile, for PDA's and a few other smart phones is at least better than its predecessor. Microsoft seems to be obsessed with enhanced graphical user interfaces based in extremely high graphics. This is what is costing the race to Microsoft. Customers just cannot afford to buy expensive hardware right now especially because that same hardware will not be worth a penny two months down the road and a newer version of windows will again set them at the back of the queue. Windows mobile is doing much better than windows vista but as predictable of all Microsoft products, it has gaping security holes which make the software crash and compromises security, the base reason Microsoft is promoting its software on. Apple does things differently. Whereas Microsoft adds security as an afterthought, Apple's latest flagship software, the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard released in October 2007, builds security with the software properly. Even though Microsoft claims that windows vista is made from the ground up as a secure platform, Leopard is much better at security and productivity. It just works better than windows. The only criticism is that there are not many third party softwares which will support this operating system therefore making it the underdog for many engineers and students who have to work with many different types of softwares in their academic life. Corporate Leadership Corporate leadership of Microsoft is extremely streamlined, and it would be, considering its size is almost four times that of Apple Inc. Microsoft takes its corporate leadership and governance very seriously. It realizes the trust and confidence its users have put into its hands and being such a big company it doesn't want to let them down. Detailed privacy policies and terms of agreements provide deep insights of how well Microsoft will protect your privacy. Regular software updates for its products not only prove their statements as correct but also shows their corporate commitment. The company structure is designed so that authority flows smoothly with a low gradient till the bottom so that there are no big gaps for employees approaching their supervisors. Employees with a heightened sense of self and responsibility for the environment and the customers provide excellent technical support and excellent updates to products to make them more useful and more productive for the users. The founder and CEO, Bill Gates is reputed to be a very cheerful and light hearted man. Even though he has a he company to look after, he takes time out for his family and goes on holiday like anyone else. A man of principles, Bill Gates continues to be an influencer for many young software developers. Apple follows similar approaches to its leaderships. The main difference between these two companies is that Apple does not collaborate much with other consumer electronics companies or software vendors. Thus its operating system does not support many third party softwares. The reason behind this as given by the executives at Apple Inc is that they only trust their own hardware and software to work seamlessly together to provide their customer un-paralleled satisfaction and the least amount of botheration with hangs. Privacy and security top the list for their products. Employees are treated in a relaxed environment and the CEO, Steve Jobs is often found roaming the company floors barefoot to give the impression to employees that they need to relax in their working environment and focus more on innovation. Power of Business An American multinational company, Microsoft is the world leader in personal computer operating software. With 79,000 employees in 2007 and office set up in 102 countries, the company's annual revenue in 2007 was 51.12 billion dollars. The headquarters of the company is in Redmond, Washington, USA. There are seldom consumer electronic devices for which Microsoft software is not available. The rise to power for Microsoft was in the mid 1980's with their MS-DOS application which was an extremely powerful tool and is still being used today. The company then branched out to include GUI in this MS-DOS software and dubbed it the Windows 95. Creating footholds in the entertainment industry with the MSNBC cable TV and on the internet with the MSN internet portal, it is hard for anyone not to come across anything developed by Microsoft in their daily life. Even the gaming industry was shaken up by the arrival of the X-Box 360 which has till now created many loyal customers in the gaming industry. Formerly Apple Computer Inc, is also an American consumer electronics organization which started its operations by only making computers and compatible software for it. Branching out into a full range of consumer electronics is something which it did perfectly in the late 1990's and through till the present, it now has a loyal customer background who will be satisfied by nothing else. Employees just reaching the 20,000 mark the company generated about 24.01 billion dollars, which is much better seeing it is one fourth the size of Microsoft and has generated almost half the revenue of Microsoft. This makes it the second largest market shareholder in the computing industry. With headquarters in California, USA, the company is run by highly innovative and creative executives. Works Cited 1. Annabelle Gawer, Michael A. Cusumano. Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry. Harvard Business School Press, 2002. 2. Mitchell Waite, Waite Group, Robert W. Lafore, Ira Lansing, Waite Group. Microsoft Macinations: An Introduction to Microsoft BASIC for the Apple MACHINTOSH. Harper and Row, 1985 3. Microsoft Corporation. Corporate Governance. 2008. 26 April 2008 4. Galen Gruman. The Mac in business: it's easier than you think. 2008. 26 April 2008 Read More