Yes, I agree the strategy tax analogy is misplaced, in accordance with a since-deleted comment:
> Apple isn't facing a "strategy tax," per the Microsoft example; it's making a strategic mistake.
Except that a mistake is when the downsides outweigh the upsides. We don't yet know if Apple has made such a strategic mistake. So if we can say that Apple has incurred a strategy tax, then it seems like a strategy tax is merely the (omnipresent) downside of any strategic decision.
What is striking about the Microsoft example is (indeed) that the company is actively harming (read: hindering) itself. I'm not sure "tax" is the best descriptive term for this phenomenon, but I think the author intended the distinction. It is a tax in that you are redistributing (within the corpus, and hopefully profitably or at least equitably) the value of certain efforts (read: features).
> Apple isn't facing a "strategy tax," per the Microsoft example; it's making a strategic mistake.
Except that a mistake is when the downsides outweigh the upsides. We don't yet know if Apple has made such a strategic mistake. So if we can say that Apple has incurred a strategy tax, then it seems like a strategy tax is merely the (omnipresent) downside of any strategic decision.
What is striking about the Microsoft example is (indeed) that the company is actively harming (read: hindering) itself. I'm not sure "tax" is the best descriptive term for this phenomenon, but I think the author intended the distinction. It is a tax in that you are redistributing (within the corpus, and hopefully profitably or at least equitably) the value of certain efforts (read: features).