Apple is the reigning king of ecosystems
From the very outset, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wasn’t a one-year, or a five-year story. The company has been around for quite a while, and while the success of the company seems fairly recent. The company has had an install-base of customers for quite a while. What the company attempted with iTunes and its later addition of iPod, iPod Touch, and iPhone was build a unified ecosystem of products.
The ecosystem was unified through Apple ID. The whole idea was to make the user experience transferable across any and all Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products and to ensure that a software or multimedia purchase would have the same effect on your iPod as it would have on your iMac. This is what forced the software community to explore alternative business models like subscriptions so that the average user can share the same experience across different devices for the same price.
Examples of cloud-based offerings include Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) Creative Cloud, salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), Spotify, and Office 365. The whole idea behind the cloud for consumers (not business) is that the computing experience should be heavily standardized so that the average user can enjoy the benefits of programs and content across all devices and operating systems.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) leveraged cloud-based synergies before any of its major competitors were even able to recognize cloud-based programs as a viable alternative to downloadable programs.
Conclusion
I believe that Apple established an early lead in building a compelling product and software ecosystem. Microsoft has a unique portfolio of both hardware and software that is formidable to what even Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) can hope to offer.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s greatest difficulty is winning the support of mobile phone manufacturers to its current ecosystem. For now, Microsoft will push products through a retail strategy that involves a partnership with Best Buy. Hopefully Microsoft’s retail-driven marketing strategy will be enough to push Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) into being a consumer friendly device.
The article Microsoft’s Restructuring May Become Successful originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Alexander Cho.
Alexander Cho has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Alexander is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
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