I think this is because Apple is a hardware company, that uses software to attract consumers. While Microsoft is a software company, that uses hardware to attract consumers.
A better way to describe their differences is that Apple started as an end-user company (and became a services company while at it) where hardware was a means to an end. The products they sell are based around an experience rather than just a bag of components/parts, as those are just the means to an end. It's why their design envelope is the way it is, and why the kept vertically integrating more and more over the decades. In a way, that's where the IWM and SWIM came in so long ago, not because they had to, but because it delivered a better solution to that specific experience than anyone else. (granted, back then using a computer had a very different meaning than it does today but the reasoning still applies)
Microsoft on the other hand is a typical SKU-mover, their business relies on selling 'parts' of someone else's workflow, but later on realised the only way to have a consistent experience is to also start making the hardware. Later on, they tacked on services, but because they kept the "spray the market with SKUs" business strategy it mostly just became 'more', rather than better integrated products for people. It's still "move as much stuff", even if it's not well-integrated. Heck, sometimes it is less-integrated because it enables moving more stuff.
At the end of the day, most large tech multinationals end up manufacturing a lot of stuff over the various layers (hardware, software, firmware, entire devices, individual components etc), but that no longer describes what the company actually "is". (just like it doesn't really describe much to group them together as "commercial money makers", it isn't very specific or useful)
> Microsoft on the other hand is a typical SKU-mover
As far as I can tell there is nothing typical about Microsoft. The sophisticated, deeply-root long game they’ve executed extremely well puts them in a very different place. As a contrast to Apple, the differences are striking - not because of the difference between “bing” and “bling”.
Their "throw as many SKUs at the market and see what sticks" model is very typical. That is not uniquely Microsoft and is very common in broad supply enterprises.
The only thing that is unique about microsoft is being in the right place at the right time, making the right B2B licensing deals and entrenching for decades because of it. Operating systems, window managers, filesystems, graphics, SDKs, IDEs, it's all been done before (and after) at equal, better and worse quality levels.
Their broad catalog is somewhat unique in having more SKUs that don't work well together (or at all) vs. ones that do, but the same applies to IBM and Google for example. And the things that do work well together tend to be based on technologies that have little to do with the company itself (like WebDAV and Kerberos), and that's not unique to Microsoft either.
The sophistication is in their business and SKU broadness, not in making proper end-to-end vertically integrated user experiences that make people happy. (well, they have started to get there in the gaming market I suppose)
If you have an example where that is not the case, and there was a product choice that merited their offering, I would love to hear about it.
This. The Microsoft long term business execution is amazing despite their resources involved in zillions of failed projects and acquisitions, and some horrible apps (e.g. Teams). It doesn't matter they are a success anyway. Other companies would be buried much before that. Always recommend the book Hard Drive (just in a yesterday's thread) [1]. I need to not forget to add now "Idea Man" [2] by Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder. It shows that the young Bill Gates was already a Titan.
I don't know the GP's intention, but I'm guessing it's that MS's actual products are all software (Windows, Office, etc) and the allure is that they can be sold on/come packaged with relatively cheap and available computing. Compare to Apple, where they primarily sell hardware, and use software (whether their own or 3rd party) to make that hardware desirable, especially at high price points.
Yeah I don't agree with that assertion either. Microsoft will produce hardware to show the art of the possible with their software. It largely comes out of a situation where the PC/device manufacturers were doing a sh* job of it.
Hardware manufacturers that aren't Microsoft have little reason to take speculative risks that might prove that there's a market for a new configuration of commodity hardware to sell Microsoft’s latest non-commodity software; it's all potential downside with very little potential upside.
