It was all about big tech companies product integration, & their competing tech ecosystems.
Dear Satya Nadella, Tim Cook & Sundar Pichai…..
“And for those of you not knowing who these people are, they are the CEOs of Microsoft, Apple & Google – The guys that run your life.
Dear Sirs, May I suggest that you all sit down together & have a coffee, beer, or any other beverage of your choice. Because if my dealings with your companies are anything to go by, you need your heads banging together.”
And so it went on, I think you get the drift.
So where are we now, 6 years on?
The long and short of it was that leading tech firms’ software/hardware compatibility issues for the sake of creating some cult like mentality in their followers, more likely seen in Apple users than others. This is because of the way Apple is set up – closed source, so to integrate each device it had to be Apple (thankfully not so much now).
Apple & Google are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how open or closed your source code is. Microsoft is somewhere in the middle, but more towards Google than Apple.
But as I said in my original post on LinkedIn, and I think that they’ve finally grasped this, rarely do you find anyone using just one company’s products.
They all do what they do well. Yes, there is a rivalry between Android & IOS, with constant one-upmanship & willy-waving, but on the whole, it’s great for competition and having an alternative for consumers.
Microsoft has realised that it can’t compete on the device front, and with the exception of the Surface tablets, has largely concentrated on software.
As good as open-source alternatives of MS products have become, they really still aren’t a patch on what the Redmond outfit produces. However, the tide may be turning on that front with MS looking to move everyone to the subscription-based Office 365.
Essentially this means that QED would have to shellout $9 per month, every month for the 2021 version of what we have now.
Thankfully Microsoft, Apple & Google integrate alot better now than they did 6years ago, and as Android users, Free open source software (FOSS solutions) alternatives are quickly catching up – we particularly like Mozilla’s Thunderbird.
And that’s the point, if part-time coders can collaborate and produce viable alternatives then ‘Big Tech’ should be worried..
