Microsoft up, Apple down.

[Tom]

This is the longest article I ever wrote for fun. It's sort of a review mixed with something I felt the need to rant. Anyway, any critique on the article would be nice. :)

History tells us that Microsoft won the OS race. Microsoft?s products in the past have been pretty sloppy and they've built up a name for bad products.

Firstly, Windows versions up until XP were rather sloppy and let a lot of people down because they were so infected with bugs and the security holes weren?t very impressive either. They then released XP and their reputation soared as XP was fast, responsive and was hugely less buggy than previous versions. After five years after its release in 2001 over 400 million copies of XP were in use and by January 2007 XP had 76.1% OS market share. Microsoft decided they wanted to build a successor of XP and built and released Windows Vista in 2007. In the first year of availability, PC World rated it as the biggest disappointment of 2007 although it sold double the amount of copies of XP did within its first month. There were rumours that people were downgrading and also talk that businesses planned to skip Vista, but why? Initially the price of Vista was extremely high at $399 for Vista Ultimate and $239 for Premium and the price wasn?t the only problem. Vista required a moderately high specification PC to run some of its basic elements such as the aero interface and Microsoft had previously claimed "nearly all PCs on the market today will run Windows Vista" which really does make Microsoft look like dummies. With the enormous amount of bugs that came with Vista it rapidly become hated by computer technicians everywhere.

Microsoft realized they had to design a operating system that would not only be better than XP but bring their reputation which Vista helped put into the ground back up to scratch. They designed and released Windows 7 which became the fastest selling operating system in history with seven copies sold every second. The response they received was extremely positive praising a huge improvement over Vista. It was more usable, secure and user friendly than its predecessor and always scored high ratings from review sites such as CNET and Engadget with an average score of 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Microsoft had pulled some pride back and successfully made an exceptional operating system. It wasn?t enough though; they still had products that were failing. Internet Explorer has practically always been a horrible web browser and companies like Google and Mozilla took advantage of this by creating their own web browser that had more features, was faster and had many more extensions. They succeeded and market share continues to climb for both browsers although Microsoft was planning something. Internet Explorer 9 a hopeful comeback to put IE?s reputation to the levels of W7. When Microsoft announced the speed of the browser people were astounded as it was actually faster than Firefox. When Microsoft released more information about the browser, leaked photos of what it may look like started to show up, eventually the true look of IE9 was released and it looked promising. It had a simple look and was said to have taken the look of Google Chrome. The speed and the simplicity of the new browser were surely going to be a winner and although it still hasn?t been released its release date is thought to be in late 2010.

While Microsoft was having fun with getting their desktop reputation back they thought they should try and make lots of revamps to old products. Next in line was Windows Phone 7 which was announced at the Mobile World Congress 2010 and once again, it looked promising. When people started to hear that Microsoft were planning on challenging the iPhone it seemed rather ridiculous and seemed they wanted to undertake the impossible but when the features of the phone were announced and the new revamped user interface myself and others thought that Microsoft had rather a good chance in the market. When it was revealed that Microsoft planned to spend $400 million on marketing alone it definitely will give Microsoft the needed boost that it needs to get the phone recognized. Microsoft being Microsoft the price of the phone hasn't yet been announced but the phone is speculated to be much cheaper than the iPhone too which really could push a lot of people to it. If the product can deliver what it is said to deliver then it will definitely do well.

With the release of the iPhone 4 Microsoft will be battling a company that some may think is slowly going downhill. It is often reported that Apple?s product support is poor and when dealing with Microsoft tech support in the past I can say it is rather good. Steve Jobs was reported to know about the antenna ?bug? before the phone was released and is thought to have known about it in the early stages of design. With Apple products costing so much and Jobs releasing broken products it won?t be long before people start to change what phone they use as in today?s world people are always looking to upgrade.

I?m happy that Microsoft has started to revamp some of their bad products and I?m sad that Apple is beginning to make their products worse. Does Apple now have the attitude that the iPhone can?t possibly be taken over by Android and WP7? It will be interesting to see Apples response to WP7 and see if their products begin to actually begin to become better. Overall, keep it up MS.

[Dysphoria]

With the release of the iPhone 4 Microsoft will be battling a company that some may think is slowly going downhill. It is often reported that Apple?s product support is poor and when dealing with Microsoft tech support in the past I can say it is rather good. Steve Jobs was reported to know about the antenna ?bug? before the phone was released and is thought to have known about it in the early stages of design. With Apple products costing so much and Jobs releasing broken products it won?t be long before people start to change what phone they use as in today?s world people are always looking to upgrade.

I?m happy that Microsoft has started to revamp some of their bad products and I?m sad that Apple is beginning to make their products worse.

Professional reviewers say differently about the iPhone and the rest of the Apple products. Consumer Reports gave the iPhone 4 better reviews than any of the competitor's phones besides acknowledging the Antenna issue.

Goldman Sachs, Merill Lynch and other market analysts disagree with you, but whatever makes you happy...

It's good that you are cheering for Microsoft, they really need it with all the bad press they've gotten lately.

We need a healthy competition that will help promote innovation and drive prices down.

[Tom]

Professional reviewers say differently about the iPhone and the rest of the Apple products. Consumer Reports gave the iPhone 4 better reviews than any of the competitor's phones besides acknowledging the Antenna issue.

Goldman Sachs, Merill Lynch and other market analysts disagree with you, but whatever makes you happy...

It's good that you are cheering for Microsoft, they really need it with all the bad press they've gotten lately.

We need a healthy competition that will help promote innovation and drive prices down.

Well I'm happy that they got off their ass after making so many bad products and are finally starting to revamp them. I think that it wasn't just the antenna issue that annoyed me about the iPhone4. It was the way they dealt with it and the arrogance and ignorance of SJobs. Before the whole ordeal I didn't mind Apple but after it, it really made me think Steve Jobs is a right ****.

[Ryoken]

Well I'm happy that they got off their ass after making so many bad products and are finally starting to revamp them. I think that it wasn't just the antenna issue that annoyed me about the iPhone4. It was the way they dealt with it and the arrogance and ignorance of SJobs. Before the whole ordeal I didn't mind Apple but after it, it really made me think Steve Jobs is a right ****.

They didn't deal with it because it was Hype, not a real issue.. You had to have your phone in a deathgrip to make it happen unless you were right on the edge of ****ty AT&T coverage lol.

As for apple support, I haven't meet a person yet who has a bad thing to say about them, including me and my dealings..

[Tom]

They didn't deal with it because it was Hype, not a real issue.. You had to have your phone in a deathgrip to make it happen unless you were right on the edge of ****ty AT&T coverage lol.

As for apple support, I haven't meet a person yet who has a bad thing to say about them, including me and my dealings..

They're lucky :o

I've spoken to at least 5 people who have said they got extremely bad tech support from Apple.

[Dysphoria]

Apple is a publicly traded company. Steve is its CEO and his job is to increase its shareholders' value.

So far he's been doing his job successfully and has been repeatedly named as the best CEO out there.

Is he an egotistical maniac? Yes, but in order to be a great leader and do his job, you need to be one.

He has a brand to protect and that's exactly what he is doing.

Wanted or not, you owe most of the today's smart-phone development to him and to the Apple's engineers.

Google up Steve Balmers remark on how iPhone will fail miserably, when the first Apple phone came out. He made the same remark for the iPad, and yet both of these products have been a great success.

It's a health competition... Apple's success drove other companies like Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung and other software and hardware companies to reassess their strategies and produce products that would compete with Apple.

No matter how you look at it.. Apple has been driving the mobile tech market for a while.

[Frylock86]

"XP was fast, responsive and was hugely less buggy than previous versions"

That is debatable. XP to me has been nothing but.

Easily overcome with malware, prone to blue screens, and quickly decays thanks to Windows rot.

IMO, the revolution didn't come until Vista.

[Tom]

"XP was fast, responsive and was hugely less buggy than previous versions"

That is debatable. XP to me has been nothing but.

Easily overcome with malware, prone to blue screens, and quickly decays thanks to Windows rot.

IMO, the revolution didn't come until Vista.

Seems you're saying Vista was better than XP? Vista blue screens every 3 seconds.

[COKid]

It's a health competition... Apple's success drove other companies like Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung and other software and hardware companies to reassess their strategies and produce products that would compete with Apple.

Spot on! Competition is good for consumers.

[Phixion]

"XP was fast, responsive and was hugely less buggy than previous versions"

That is debatable. XP to me has been nothing but.

Easily overcome with malware, prone to blue screens, and quickly decays thanks to Windows rot.

IMO, the revolution didn't come until Vista.

User error IMO. XP was rock solid after installing all Updates.

[Pharos]

+1 Also, Windows XP was not all roses. OP, you seem to have forgotten about the vulnerability fiasco which occured before SP2 came out. It was the worst security disaster ever seen in the computer world. In my honest opinion this article is extremely biased, starting with the title itself. You wrote everything about Microsoft, but hardly explained the reason for "Apple down".

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

"XP was fast, responsive and was hugely less buggy than previous versions"

That is debatable. XP to me has been nothing but.

Easily overcome with malware, prone to blue screens, and quickly decays thanks to Windows rot.

IMO, the revolution didn't come until Vista.

I disagree. XP marked the switch from the DOS-based Windows versions of the past to the NT kernel - a massive improvement in many ways. It was not nearly as prone to problems as Windows 9x.

[Frylock86]

I disagree. XP marked the switch from the DOS-based Windows versions of the past to the NT kernel - a massive improvement in many ways. It was not nearly as prone to problems as Windows 9x.

Yeah, DLL Hell for one was fixed, but XP pre-SP2 was a disaster in every sense of the word.

It fixed a lot fo things, but created bigger problems. In this day and age, I wouldn't wish XP on my worst enemies.

I disagree. XP marked the switch from the DOS-based Windows versions of the past to the NT kernel - a massive improvement in many ways. It was not nearly as prone to problems as Windows 9x.

Yeah, DLL Hell for one was fixed, but XP pre-SP2 was a disaster in every sense of the word.

It fixed a lot fo things, but created bigger problems. In this day and age, I wouldn't wish XP on my worst enemies.

I disagree. XP marked the switch from the DOS-based Windows versions of the past to the NT kernel - a massive improvement in many ways. It was not nearly as prone to problems as Windows 9x.

Yeah, DLL Hell for one was fixed, but XP pre-SP2 was a disaster in every sense of the word.

It fixed a lot fo things, but created bigger problems. In this day and age, I wouldn't wish XP on my worst enemies.

[techbeck]

It's good that you are cheering for Microsoft, they really need it with all the bad press they've gotten lately.

We need a healthy competition that will help promote innovation and drive prices down.

Kinda like Apple huh? And Apple does not promote healthy competition. Bashing the competition and spreading lies about a product is not promoting healthy competition.

As far as MS is concerned, they are not as bad off as a lot of people think. Vista had issues...but it still sold a good number of copies. MS learned from that, people saw that MS is making good by their customers and released Windows 7 which is solid. The last latest flop for MS was the KIN. But hey, no one really cared about the KIN and the flop was only news for a day or two. Now no one talks about it but you still hear people talking about Vista. So I dont think the KIN really hurt MS any.

Apple has been getting more bad press lately than MS. You have the iPhone 4 and Jobs blaming the consumer and telling everyone on earth they dont know how to hold a phone. Then you have the iPad with poor reception. But hey, Jobs s aid to move closer to the access point our buy one of their APs, so that must be a good fix...right?? Not to mention the issues with the iOS 4 and the white iPhone. And lets not get in to how demanding and controlling Apple is.

I also tend to find a lot of PRO reviews biased. I lean more towards user reviews as they have real world experience...not some testing done in a shop someplace or by using only one phone/PC/whatever else.

[Frylock86]

EDIT: My school's wi-fi is so awesome!

/ SARCASM

[techbeck]

They didn't deal with it because it was Hype, not a real issue.. You had to have your phone in a deathgrip to make it happen unless you were right on the edge of ****ty AT&T coverage lol.

As for apple support, I haven't meet a person yet who has a bad thing to say about them, including me and my dealings..

Death grip? You mean touching one area with the tip of your finger is a death grip? whatever. I have seen the issue first hand and all it takes is one touch.

As far as support is concerned, I find it hit or miss at most places. I have had issues with Apple, HP, Dell, MS...and the list goes on. It really depends on who you talk to as well. I dont want to talk to no one from Pakistan and if I get a person who doesnt speak english, I will hang up and call again. Nothing more frustrating that having to repeat your self, or them repeating themselves, because we cannot understand each other.

[Frylock86]

Death grip? You mean touching one area with the tip of your finger is a death grip? whatever. I have seen the issue first hand and all it takes is one touch.

As far as support is concerned, I find it hit or miss at most places. I have had issues with Apple, HP, Dell, MS...and the list goes on. It really depends on who you talk to as well. I dont want to talk to no one from Pakistan and if I get a person who doesnt speak english, I will hang up and call again. Nothing more frustrating that having to repeat your self, or them repeating themselves, because we cannot understand each other.

I agree, last month when I went into the Apple store here in Lancaster, I tested 4 different phones, and all it took was holding the phone like I would any other. Each of the phones full bars dropped to 0.

[manosdoc]

Having Choise always wins the in long run, and Microsoft always gives it.

Apple never.

So : Microsoft Up, Apple Down

[techbeck]

Google up Steve Balmers remark on how iPhone will fail miserably, when the first Apple phone came out. He made the same remark for the iPad, and yet both of these products have been a great success.

It's a health competition... Apple's success drove other companies like Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung and other software and hardware companies to reassess their strategies and produce products that would compete with Apple.

No matter how you look at it.. Apple has been driving the mobile tech market for a while.

Steve Balmer was just talking out of his ass. I remember Mr Gates saying that people would never surpass a certain memory size and now we have gone way past that. And again, there is nothing healthy about bashing the competition.

Apple has been driving part of the tech market but no where near all of it. And Google has no desire to outsell Apple or to take over as the most popular phone. They have already stated this several times.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Having Choise always wins the in long run, and Microsoft always gives it.

Apple never.

So : Microsoft Up, Apple Down

It depends what you mean by choice.

Apple arguably offer a wider range of products and services than what Microsoft do for general consumers.

[Eric Veteran]

[Thread cleaned]

If you are not interested in the thread's topic, chose another. Do not drag this one with off-topic.

[Prince Charming]

It depends what you mean by choice.

Apple arguably offer a wider range of products and services than what Microsoft do for general consumers.

Really? I'd struggle to agree with that. Care to provide any examples?

[techbeck]

It depends what you mean by choice.

Apple arguably offer a wider range of products and services than what Microsoft do for general consumers.

Sorry dude...

Apple and MS are in different fields and dealing with different types of customers that far outweigh what Apple is doing. Apple may have a wider range of HARDWARE than MS does...but then again, Microsoft has never really been in the business of selling PC hardware other that KBs/Mice. MS blows Apple away when it comes to games, corporate, and software.

[Dysphoria]

Steve Balmer was just talking out of his ass. I remember Mr Gates saying that people would never surpass a certain memory size and now we have gone way past that. And again, there is nothing healthy about bashing the competition.

It's called marketing... the only people that get offended are fanboys...

I find their commercials funny, just as much as Droid's commercial making fun of the iPhone antenna.

And Google has no desire to outsell Apple or to take over as the most popular phone. They have already stated this several times.

Google also stated that they have no intention of getting in the mobile market, and yet here they are...

[Growled Member]

I feel better about Microsoft than I have for a long time. They seem to be on track these days and they have way more hits than they do misses. To me, comparing Apple and Microsoft is like comparing apples and oranges (pun intended) even though they do compete on many levels. Both has their place and there is certainly room for both. However, with Apple you get the total package (hardware and software) while MS is traditional thought of as a software company, though that is changing somewhat thanks to the XBox.