The rest of your comments, are sour grapes, but, the one about Apple being creative, is laughable.
Apple has, basically, 3 products, and all of them are basically the same, just in forms from small to medium to larger. That’s the iPhone and iPad and Macs. Whatever else they have, like iOS and iCloud, is just for support of those 3 products. That’s not diversification and that doesn’t require that much in R&D, which will come back to bite them hard in the ass once the competition gets their acts together and start eating into whatever part of the mobile market Apple still has. And in fact, that has already started to happen, with Android tablets starting to make their moves, and the Surface tablets becoming the first real threat to Apple in the last 4 years.
Without diversification, Apple is doomed, although, right now, they’re riding the wave of popularity with their iPhones and iPads. But, like I said, that’s changing, and Apple had better start diversifying soon, or they’ll become another RIM.
MS does a lot of R&D, and just like any other corporation with a lot of that, some of the research will become hits, some will fail, and some will remain on the sidelines until the proper time. That’s what the original “Surface” (not the tablet) was about, and, though that still hasn’t come to market in a big way, it’s still in the development stages, even if it has met some real uses as it is right now.
When it comes to products and services, Microsoft is many times bigger, and in a market with so many uncertainties, and so much competition, I would put my money on the more highly diversified company, and not on the one which is riding a wave of popularity and fanaticism and hype, and basically, resting on its laurels.
First, I must commend you for being the rare person who uses "sour grapes" correctly, if I understand your intent. Doesn't make you correct though.
Apple has, basically, 3 products, and all of them are basically the same, just in forms from small to medium to larger. That’s the iPhone and iPad and Macs.
That's three product lines. But you think that way, then Asus makes two products: computers and tablets. Of course, Apple also makes the iPod and Apple TV.
That’s not diversification and that doesn’t require that much in R&D
Lovely buzzword there. Diversification for the sake of diversification is dumb.
Most companies will spend their R&D on a large spread of products and produce a lot of mediocrity. Apple spends their R&D on a small line of highly focused, high-quality, high-end products. Their attention to detail is far beyond anything any other OEM does, and it usually makes the products great.
In short, Apple doesn't product a lot of crap, throw it at the market, and see what sticks. Apple designs stuff that will succeed.
hich will come back to bite them hard in the ass once the competition gets their acts together and start eating into whatever part of the mobile market Apple still has
We've watched the pattern for years: Apple makes something, others produce initially crappy copies, eventually others produce decent copies, but by then Apple has produced the next generation that they need to copy. Wash, rinse, repeat.
True, Apple may actually fall behind on individual features, but usually there's a plan in place before we even realized the deficiency. For example, turn-by-turn navigation. Turns out iOS doesn't have it because Apple uses the Google mapping API, and it forbids using it for turn-by-turn navigation. But Apple started quietly buying mapping companies back in 2009, before Google released navigation for Android. So Google's service was a stop-gap, until Apple can do it right (and by all reports, navigation in iOS 6 is awesome).
That's one thing about Apple, they usually don't release something until they can do it right. No Vista here, no first-generation XBox, both of which weren't just random problems that can hit anyone, but reflected the mismanagement of those products' development.
even if it has met some real uses as it is right now
Reporters were allowed a dog and pony show, no real use. Everything right now must be taken as a press release. No reviews labeled as "hands-on" can be trusted.
I would put my money on the more highly diversified company, and not on the one which is riding a wave of popularity and fanaticism and hype, and basically, resting on its laurels.
I would take company focused on making products that are highly profitable from day one, not the one that floundered for ten years trying to produce profit on a decent product. I'm not sure if Microsoft has even paid off the XBox division's loss leader yet. That billion dollar charge due to shoddy design sure pushed back the profit timetable.
And resting on laurels? Hmmm, iPhone comes out, turns the industry upside down. Every generation is far better, producing more features that the competition has to copy. Nobody ever produces an ultrabook that people like, then Apple comes along and reinvents the market, copies follow. iPad then comes out, reinventing yet another market, copiers rush in. When they get close, Apple ups the ante with that Retina display. And now the notebooks have it (AnandTech, not an Apple cheerleader, says "Apple is pushing the limits of the hardware we have available today, far beyond what any other OEM has done."). Yeah, that's resting on your laurels.
Tell me when Microsoft brings chip design in-house. Right now IBM, Intel and AMD design everything that Microsoft products run on. Apple doesn't have that dependency for the portables. How's that for "diversification"? Apple doesn't have to hope someone makes a chip to their specs. If they need twice the GPU power for their Retina display, they design it into their SoC and ship it off to be fabbed. That's flexibility, rapid turnaround.
Now that's not to say Apple hasn't made mistakes. Their first shot at a phone was done in line with the way the rest of the industry did it -- the Motorola ROKR. What a piece of junk. Apple ditched the standard way of doing things (where the telcos have a big say in every aspect of hardware and software) and produced the iPhone. AT&T didn't even see a complete one until the day the rest of the world did. Now everyone follows. The hockey puck mouse sucked. The Cube, while an engineering marvel, completely missed any potential market. The XServe and XServe RAID were great products, but Apple failed to find large markets for them (IMHO mainly because Apple doesn't have the corporate support infrastructure of the likes of HP and Dell that you need behind server sales). And of course the Mac Pro, which hasn't received any attention from Apple in two years. At one time it was the best value for a workstation. Not anymore.