Microsoft and Apple are competing with each other in a wide
array of businesses, and they have always been considered
fierce rivals in desktop, tablet and phone businesses. The
hot and cold periods between Microsoft and Apple began in
earnest in the 1980s. Back in the old days, when Jobs was
ousted from Apple, Microsoft then went on to dominate the PC
industry.
Microsoft and Apple long-distance dispute is very famous. In an
interview, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer Chris Capossela
says that the old rivalry between the two companies is over,
and this is a result of a cultural shift in the company.
Microsoft has transformed in the past few years, and the
software giant wants to make its products and services
available to customers regardless of the device they
operate. One such recent example is Microsoft Edge, the
company’s newest and default browser of Windows 10 operating
system is now available on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Microsoft’s product strategy involves bringing apps and
services to Apple’s platform and as well as Google’s. It is
also worth noting that the majority of Microsoft apps can be
also installed on Apple devices.
“We’ve moved away from that competitive focus that I think
we’ve had in the past We need to bring our products on the
platforms that our customers are using. So Office on the iPad
or iPhone, Minecraft on every platform, that’s just a natural
thing for us to do,” Capossela explained.
Capossela says that Microsoft’s focus is on fans and not to go
after rival. Basically, Microsoft is trying to improve the
devices for fans as the fans will only recruit new people and
talk about the company’s devices.
“We found out it’s far better for us to actually focus on our
own fans. The fans are the ones that are going to talk about
your stuff, the fans will recruit new people, the fans will
tell you honestly what you need to do to fix your own products
and make your own products much better,” he added. The new
strategy certainly makes sense, and the idea to prioritize fans
with improvements that are tailored for the devices is working
as expected with Microsoft seeing a big growth in Surface and
Xbox devices.
“So we’ve moved away from that sort of competitive focus that I
think we’ve had in the past and now we’re focusing not just on
our customers, but specifically on the people that use our
stuff,” he continued.
Microsoft has however been criticized by its fans for
bringing the exclusive apps to the rival platform and leaving
its own platforms (Windows Phone) behind. While the company’s
increased focus on rival platforms generated a huge criticism
from the community, the large userbase of rival platforms
helped Microsoft increase the revenue of products and services
like Office 365.
