Biggest news in the IT world last week was the resignation of Steve Jobs, albeit it could be seen as a promotion of sorts, moving from CEO to Chairman. An absolute farewell would probably see share-price disaster as Apple seems to think it cannot survive without Jobs. Even the reshuffle has sparked industry excitement that Apple is weakened and competitors can benefit.
Was it this way when Bill Gates gave up the day job in favour of Steve Ballmer? I honestly can’t remember; it’s all so much hype. However, I am wondering how much longer the Apple bubble can go on for. Having lost the battle to PCs in the 1990s, Apple carved out a niche supplying elegant solutions for the more creative field. Was this Betamax versus VHS all over again? Probably. Like many office workers I am completely familiar with Windows. No matter how often husband tells me Apple software is more intuitive to use, it will always feel alien to me. But Apple is taking over. Every other person has an iPhone; iPad, iPod, iTouch, iNano; it gets on my iNerves. Every movie I see lately product-places Mac Books. Are that many people shunning their PCs in favour of never seeing flash and having a search engine which is determined to second guess my needs? (Apparently you can turn that off!)
Now we have iCloud, ready to do battle with Office 365. We’ve had Google Apps for years but no one seems to note that, maybe because it’s not really taken off (I used it for document sharing my baby list six years ago and don’t think I’ve bothered since, probably because I rarely need to share personal documents and at work we use SharePoint). I predict that people won’t notice Google Apps, or recognise that Office 365 has already made some great progress in gaining business users and consumers via Windows Mobile 7; all eyes will be on iCloud.
What Apple has achieved under Steve Jobs is creating a luxury brand. I cannot think of another technology company who has been this successful in appealing to consumers’ emotions. The world will be watching Tim Cook at the iPhone 5 launch to see how he fares in maintaining the momentum. Microsoft will be looking for the opportunity to regain their position as the largest technology company and Nokia will be hoping for a chance to get back in the game. In the meantime, we can probably no longer assume that most business users will be on Microsoft platforms (luckily Microsoft Dynamics NAV can run on a Mac!). Although Apple’s market-strength is with consumers rather than businesses; this makes the iCloud even more interesting as most consumers admit to not understanding Cloud technology even when a high percentage of them have been using it for years (when did you get your first Hotmail account?!). It will be interesting to see how the industry reacts in the next twelve months. Whilst I have a vested interest in Microsoft winning, no ill feelings just best wishes for a speedy recovery to Steve Jobs.
