
Why doesn't Microsoft out-innovate Apple? - rockstar9
http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/why-doesnt-microsoft-outinnova.html
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rantfoil
Speaking from experience, innovation is VERY difficult to achieve from within
the Microsoft organization. It's not impossible. It's just hard. Microsoft is
a collection of loosely related fiefdoms linked at the VP level, which is
easily 8 or more reporting levels above the normal joe level of software
engineers and PM's. You need to have the ear of some very important people to
get things done, which just probably won't happen for most.

Innovative organizations seem to be of two types: a) top down design
leadership like Apple, or more likely b) bottom up environment that allows
innovation to happen organically. SteveB and most of the VP's don't have the
product design gifts Steve Jobs has, so A is out of the question.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is so large and un-agile that B is impossible as
well.

~~~
tx
I wonder how did .NET thing worked out? Someone decided to bring Anders
Hejlsberg on board and give him absolute freedom.

It was quite impressive for a company of Microsoft's size to create something
like that from scratch.

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markbao
I'd absolutely agree with rantfoil and damon, but here's another reason why
(and I own and love a Mac, for the record):

 _Fanboys._

I'm not kidding. Microsoft can innovate well (and they have in the past) and
they'll always have an _evil_ stigma around them. Apple, whatever they do,
mostly has an "everything Apple does is awesome and good" while glossing over
the things Apple has done wrong.

Granted, Apple's done some great stuff. But I'll say this: when Apple releases
a Tablet PC, fanboys will praise it even though if it is with similar
functionality to Microsoft's Tablet PC, and will cause the inertia to start
and people start pointing out the obscure flaws in Microsoft's Tablet PC and
talk about how amazing Apple's is.

I'm being absolutely serious here. It's something that's akin to the
Google/Yahoo! competition also. Fanboys and the people that they influence
have a great effect on a company's desire to innovate.

~~~
tx
Good companies can create fanboys and not-so-good can lose them seemingly
overnight. Believe it or not, there were quite a few Microsoft fanboys just 10
years ago, I was one of them: it was a great place to work in early 90s and
they kicked everyone's ass on engineering battleground: Netscape, Borland and
IBM can whine all they want, but the technology behind NN4, Borland compilers
and OS/2 couldn't handle Microsoft's will to compete.

... while Apple was considered to be technically inferior (and it was)
overpriced junk for seniors.

When you turn these tables around, that's called innovation: not just 100%
technology, but design and marketing as well.

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joao
It isn't that Apple has better designers or programmers, but they have a
culture that thrives on quality, innovation and just plain building better
products than the competition. Here's a great post on that:
[http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/07/05/how-many-of-
your...](http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/07/05/how-many-of-your-teams-
ideas-are-in-the-iphone-2/)

"... [Apple] is a company with leadership who has the fortitude to take the
risk, find the budget, and push the technology for the single cause of
designing compelling user experiences. Apple got it right."

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gscott
There are a lot of people in Microsoft with a wide range of skills. Give MS
employees 1 day a week to work on there own special projects and create a
"Microsoft labs" page and they would get some great stuff created. But I
believe that MS likes to have ideas flow from the top instead of from the
bottom/middle. People at the top (likely) want to protect there position, so
they do not allow people to "stand out" in any way.

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henning
A big part of Microsoft's R&D is paying people like Erik Meijer to not work
for someone Microsoft is competing with.

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damon
Innovation takes more than deep pockets...

~~~
sabat
Alan Kay (guy who invented the window and other GUI goodies while at PARC)
once said that innovation really isn't that difficult to achieve -- you just
need to rub smart people and money together.

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STHayden
they just need a steve jobs like person. I don't even like apple but you need
to have a guy who can make large decisions and also have a vision of the ways
things need to work. If the people in charge are not already like that they
will not jump at the chance to give up their power to some one else.

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mynameishere
_Yet Apple seems to deliver far more innovative products to market_

Keyword: Seems.

Yes, if you're preaching to the converted, that's proof enough, but Apple has
rebadged BSD and has gotten a large degree of success through a remake of a
1979 device, the Sony Walkman. But those aren't really innovations at all.
Shiny object!=innovation. I don't know how else to put it.

Here's microsoft's research page,

<http://research.microsoft.com/research/default.aspx>

Here's, umm, Apple's

<http://www.apple.com/education/research/>

...or, at least, that's the 1st link for the search query, "Apple Research":

 _Hmm, the page you’re looking for can’t be found._

A 404.

~~~
alaskamiller
Upon Steve Job's return one of the many decisions he did was to axe the
Research group within Apple. His explanation was simply: no one does R in the
valley anymore. The sole survivor of that group was QuickTime while over the
years what Apple has always excelled at has been development and an eye for
seeing innovation and bring that home.

iPod: contracted.

iTunes: bought.

Most of the pro tools: bought.

Computers: integration of OEM parts.

Displays: rebadged.

And they've been able to gain marketshare like crazy and release products that
people lust for. On the consumer front what has Microsoft presented to the
world even with their massive research division? Talking Barney dolls? A house
full of quirky tech they keep showing off every chance they get? Surface?
Zune? Xbox?

~~~
sabat
"iPod: contracted."

The physical manufacturing, yeah, but I'm pretty sure the hardware designers
are Apple employees.

"iTunes: bought."

The basis for it was purchased, yes. It was nothing like it is now.

The thing with Apple is that they tend to take germs of ideas and see them
through to full realization. Mac OS, you could say, was just a clone of the OS
that ran the Xerox Star. But the Star's OS was crude compared to the Mac's
(even in the earliest versions).

~~~
alaskamiller
Tony Fadell started out as a contractor here at Apple. He brought him his
designs for a media player and a team merged that with the small hard drives
that Hitachi was peddling and from there on it grew into the original iPod
prototype. Tony is now a VP.

iTunes was bought, sure the codebase (rebooted from 4.0 and onward) is
different but it was bought in. Just like almost all the pro tools and that
has now since been revamped.

My point still stands: after Steve Jobs came back what Apple has really done
well is taking parts/ideas off the shelves and developing them into wonderful
consumer products.

~~~
sabat
The innovation people are talking about is in taking germs of ideas and making
them blossom into full potential -- that includes developing new ideas along
the way. Just like Mac OS came from the Star.

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alaskamiller
Speaking from experience, it's the ability Steve Jobs has to merge benevolence
with good design. It's a mission and within the DNA of Apple to bring to the
world good designs, intuition, and stuff that just works.

At the end of the day it's just computers but when imbued with the idea that
through computers peoples' lives are easier, more efficient, and more fun, you
just attract people willing to work harder and longer and wanting to change
the world.

Sappy, yes, but it works.

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sabat
Steve Jobs summed up his opinion on why this is:

The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have
absolutely no taste, and what that means is -- I don't mean that in a small
way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they they don't think of
original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their products. And you
say, "why is that important?" -- well, you know, proportionally spaced fonts
come from type setting and beautiful books, that's where one gets the idea --
if it weren't for the Mac they would never have that in their products and so
I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success -- I have no problem with
their success, they've earned their success for the most part. I have a
problem with the fact that they just make really third rate products.

(from Triumph of the Nerds)

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shiranaihito
My biased guess is that Microsoft is concentrating too much on forcefully
extracting money from whereever it can.

Apple has obviously concentrated on making things that people would actually
_want to_ use. The truckloads of money they're raking in is just an
(intentional) side-effect.

The plan with Vista was to ram it down everyone's throat through Microsoft's
monopoly position, but where is the added value for the users?

Leopard received a much warmer response. Fanboys, yes, and bugs, but still -
it's something that people want to use.

