Apart from finding yourself wondering, “why these four specifically?,” this is a handy comparison put together by the New York Times back in January.
It’s a sort of “completeness check” comparing each of the four contenders’ line-ups in fields as diverse as gaming hardware, browsers and online music stores. What it leaves out is an assessment of the relative success of each product or service offering in comparison to the others, and so Microsoft – the completist but stumbling giant – looks a lot ‘fuller’ in this chart than anyone else. Apple’s showing, of course, is primarily characterized by the absence of the typical advertising-driven online business and social networking plays of the others (search, news, maps, etc.).
The New York Times’ commentary suggests that this chart helps us speculate on the directions these businesses might seek to expand in. Which – at the surface – is a reasonable idea, and yet I find myself wondering whether these four really are playing the same game, at the same table, in the same casino. I neither see Microsoft suddenly develop its own desktop hardware nor do I really expect Apple to launch search and news sites.
What was interesting to me was to attentively parse through Microsoft’s very complete-looking column to see if I could figure out what each of those products and services are (and whether I’d seen or used them). Frequently, I found myself having to search Microsoft’s website (or live.com) and then going, “Ah. Okay…” A lot of these offerings are painfully “so what?” – usable but forgettable.
Microsoft’s policy of spending its vast resources on copying first-to-market players isn’t really working anymore, or at least not in the same way. The pace of innovation has sped up, the technological barrier to entry has been lowered, and Microsoft’s big company politics and hiring practices are hurting more than they’re helping. By the time Microsoft had copied Dropbox with its own Mesh, Dropbox was already part of the public conversation and Mesh won’t ever catch up regardless of whether it’s baked into a future version of Windows or not.
Google is beginning to act similarly in some ways – the launch of Buzz brought us a poor ‘social networking’ product that nobody uses and many people distrust deeply (and whose content is apparently 80% generated by other services like Twitter and syndicated into Buzz).
On the chart above, Apple at least seems somewhat focused on developing its core businesses – PCs, tablets, phones, music players and music services. Comparing it to some of the other players still feels like comparing General Motors to General Electric. Not quite the same thing.
What’s missing on this chart is Facebook. The picture isn’t emerging clearly yet, but Facebook is obviously thinking bigger than people had anticipated with its universal “Like” button and other new features. Here’s hoping the New York Times plans to update its comparison chart quarterly.
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