> THIS IS THE WORLD Microsoft is STUCK with. They cannot DO anything about it....
No argument there. Microsoft does not make SYSTEMS, they make software and a thousand other somebodies make the hardware.
Apple has the tremendous advantage that they make SYSTEMS. As one who has spent much of my professional life as a system design engineer, I can say without a trace of hesitation that a contained, integrated, well-composed system will nearly always beat an open hodge-podge assembly for conceptual integrity, ease of use, elegance, and solidity, to name but a few traits.
But I would argue that while Apple's systems often provide excellent high-bar examples of how things ought to be done, they do not "set standards" in the technical sense you describe, of "you must do this to comply with the standard". That is because Apple protects their designs rigorously (as they should), and they do not really want other manufacturers using them as a standard -- in that technical sense.
So perhaps I do not understand your "comparison", since Apple doesn't provide standards of the sort you fault Microsoft for not providing, either...?
Additionally, they benefit ENORMOUSLY from the open hardware world that Microsoft supports. The advances and huge cost savings in modern hardware are a direct result of Microsoft providing a common platform for that hardware to support.
Think of the closed systems that no longer exist because they simply could not keep up with the pace of innovation in the open-standards hardware world... A standard platform has allowed the hardware to develop and explode. It was the PC platform that caused the revolution of the 80s, and that was because IBM was not able to lock it down as a closed system (thanks, Compaq!).
Apple now benefits from that - standard PC hardware, developed because Microsoft provided the OS and support platform (the open driver model) to spur that innovation. All the Mac hardware is from the PC world, and it's why you can run a PC-based Linux directly on Macs. They are now in the world of the PC, in terms of hardware.
Closed systems can yield amazing elegant and solid systems, but ultimately do not provide the open and stable platform for broad market innovation and advancement. Market growth requires a mix of both; close the system too much and you get zero growth. Keep it too chaotic (no stable API or driver model, for example) and nothing can stabilize for development.
OK, then perhaps “standards” aren’t the right words, since if we go into the minutia, their entire philosophies are so divergent as to make this less about apples and oranges then about fruits and meats.
But, I think I can sum it up again by returning to the point of view of the end user. Sure you and I can take this on for hours going into which process has which inherent advantages and such, but that is exactly where the users leave us and these threads server no other value. I am not trying to educate other techies, nor really inform or educate the lay people. So I speak to the common end user in generalities and using common terms. Standards.
The definition of Standards is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard
I post that, not so anyone can go word hunting and drag this down into the morass of linguistic debates, but to get it out of the way of the real issue. I post it so we can all see that the meaning isn’t even standard. It has as wide of a scope and meaning as do standards themselves.
So to my point: Microsoft doesn’t even try to set a minimalist standard. I mean it. A standard which by all accounts employs “thousands of other somebodies” and their idea of standards is NOT a standard. Apple as we noted, goes to the far other extreme in that, they don’t even ALLOW these other somebodies to make stuff.
THAT VERY FACT is my point. The extreme difference. How can Microsoft even THINK they can go there? Defacto, they cannot. OK, sure they “could”, but I could walk to England too... but let’s keep it practical and real. Microsoft trying to be like Apple when their very core of Standards is divergent enough that we can say one has nearly every standard to the degree that there is no standard, and the other has NO NEED of standards because they control it all cradle to grave, that is like trying to walk to the moon.
I am not suggesting that Mircosoft TRY to set a standard. They have entered into a process where if they did, it would increase the costs on the suppliers and break their one selling point: COST.
Imagine if Microsoft just leaned a little towards an Apple process and said, ONLY THESE 5 Chipsets will be certified to run OS 8. 5 from perhaps 500...
That would make NEW COKE look like a brilliant marketing move!!
So, again, understand, when I say “NEVER” “CANNOT” “IMPOSSIBLE” “NO STANDARDS” I mean it, only from, for and to the end users who do not WANT to have this star trek level debate. They just want to know why a Dell costs $799 and a Mac costs $999 and is it worth it. So I speak to them for that reason. And you can always, if you are a real geek, find the exception and the technicality to hang a word or two upon.
But like Microsoft... it’s not my point to get overly technical, so why bother?
= )