The Glade 4.0

This displays a graph with numbers. I came up with this myself... nothing taken from Reddit. .

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ma ... t+10+years

It's pretty interesting how gigantic Apple has become. Microsoft is definitely the underdog now.

Underdog.. at what? The mp3 player and phone hardware markets?

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

They both make hardware and software now with many different products in overlapping categories.

The only overlapping hardware markets I know of are the Zune/iPod. Microsoft doesn't make any phones, just a phone OS, so it's not a direct competition.

Microsoft also doesn't make any laptops, or desktops. I don't think Apple is a serious competitor with Microsoft in the peripheral industry, and Microsoft still maintains a very healthy lead in OS marketshare on non-mobile platforms.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

They clearly compete in many different areas.

didn't apple lauch a social networking part of iTunes? Dont recall what its called. IIRC it bombed miserably.

Ping, and yeah.

There's other things listed there that one can hardly say Apple is "competing" with Microsoft on. Apples office suite? Yeah, whatever. I have to wonder what they're qualifying as "business software," too. I imagine that, for Microsoft, this incorporates their Back Office suite. Not sure what Apple has that would qualify.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

There's millions of tech articles comparing Apple and Microsoft as competitors. I doubt all their assessments are all off.

They are competitors. But their competition plays no part in Apple's increase in value. Apple's increase in value has been in markets that Microsoft doesn't really compete in (laptop hardware, phone hardware, phone OS (Windows Mobile has never been a strong presence, IMO, only comparing favorably to real dogs like PalmOS), networking hardware) and markets Microsoft has reluctantly limped into after Apple broke them open, and then promptly stopped supporting/caring about (Zune, anybody?), but they've made few marketshare gains in the markets Microsoft does compete in.

It'll be interesting to see how Apple fares with Jobs stepping down.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I disagree. Microsoft's failures in the mobile market have allowed for Apple to grow so much.

Smart phones don't drive the real tech market and they won't until they can do EVERYTHING a PC can do--which also means you can plug in a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and play the best computer games on them at the highest possible graphics settings at 60+ frames per second. Or how about running bittorrent 24/7 without paying ridiculous charges and storing several terabytes of media in the device? Until they have all the features of the best desktop PCs, they're just gimmicky gadgets designed to hold one over when they are stuck away from home, until they can get to a real computer. PCs direct the direction of computing tech. And PCs mostly run Windows.

Now, Apple's real concern isn't Microsoft--not yet, anyway (the Win7 mobile phones are supposed to be spectacular, but they'll take a while to catch on). Their biggest threat in the consumer mobile field --Apple's only real strength-- is Google. Of course, neither of them have caught up to that monolithic corporate giant known as Research in Motion when it comes to the total mobile market (Corporate is everything there, consumer level is just for show), which is bizarre, since near as I can tell, just about everything Blackberry sucks.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Smart phone sales are expected to eclipse computer sales within a few years. Apple has a huge lead over Microsoft. Apple's tablets are also much more popular than anything Microsoft has put out.

Microsoft's phones default the search engine to Bing and you can't fix it (link). I don't know if you've used Bing but it's pretty terrible compared to Google. It's an ok phone if you don't care about using the Internet. Also it seems the interface is really babified, the features are worse in general, and there's much less apps. It's supposedly more difficult for developers to create apps for Windows Phone 7 and get them approved. I can't see an informed consumer ever buying a Windows Phone 7 over an Android.