July 28, 2008 6:37 AM PDT
Comparing Apple to Microsoft in PR
Dan Lyons utters an uncomfortable truth today: We'd never let Microsoft get away with the PR smoke and mirrors that Apple regularly offers. I'm a near-religious Apple fan, but it's absolutely true that we give Apple a free pass on just about everything.
He's referring, of course, to the way Steve Jobs treated a New York Times reporter (called him, insulted him, and then said he'd give him information but only off the record). If Ballmer did that same thing, and if Microsoft sheltered Ballmer the way Apple shelters Jobs, the media would freak, as would the rank-and-file like you and me.
We'd have him drawn-and-quartered.
Apple fan though I am, I'm getting uncomfortable with the double standard by which I and others judge Apple.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
A. Apple products clearly have had shortcomings in the last year. IPhone pricing; MobileMe; the endless software patches; the pre-announced (but not availability of IPhone 2); apparently 3G issues on IPhone.
I'm sort of sad to conclude that the "It's from Apple, it just works" is on hold. If they keep doing it, it will cease. Their ambitions have increased with success; their system test resources seem not to.
Their TV spots are brilliant but will lose credibility shortly if they continue to ship MobileMe, etc..
B. Steve Jobs's health is a material issue to shareholders. Period. It goes with the territory: He's wealth and a celebrity, thanks to hard work and talent. Conversely, more disclosure and responsibility comes with running a public company, period.
C. It is also pretty clear that Apple can act with as much arrogance as any. Take Flash on the IPhone. Most users would love to have it. Instead of working with Adobe to see if it's feasible, it becomes a corporate ego issue apparently to bash Adobe. Ditto MobileMe -- one Apple excuse is that it's "flaws with Outlook" that prevent it from working. News flash, Apple: Outlook is far from perfect, but others have figured their way to work around those imperfections. It's hard, grungy work -- but....
If Apple really wants to return from "niche" to a true alternate to Windows, then it better deal with criticism better and do the hard work of creating products that work in diverse environments. Or sadly, it will remain a high-priced alternative to the cognoscenti.
Speaking of MSFT, did you hear they launched Windows Mojave yesterday? ;)
1. MS is #1 in do as I say, not as I do.
2. MS says very misleading things about their products, and when it catches up with them, they and their defenders resort to "That's all in the past, trust me now".
http://darkbrownhole.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-do-microsoft-people-say-about-macs.html
The antics of Steve Jobs seem almost paranoid and tyrannical some times, but he does things consistently with what he says, he is passionate about his product, and responds to constructive criticism. Apple is sometimes a little slow to hear their customer, but they are listening.
It seems to escape Steve Ballmer that he is the personification of Microsoft. What he says and does is amplied many times over, because the Steve Ballmer projection is bigger than MS and his products.
IMHO
Apple's stuff works more often than not because customer have to go out of their way to buy their stuff historically. Jobs is a sad, twisted psychopath but he is at one level an honest shopkeeper in that he knows the customer should be satisfied by things that work. MSFT, really, just a law firm with programmers, looks for choke points to jam and control to manipulate the market to its advantage and finally to its monopoly control. In that way, it's one-trick pony company but one that has never had customers in its product development equation. They're completely external to the company's thinking.
Apple asks: how can the product make the experience complete or more useful for a consumer/user, pain in the rear that he may be?
MSFT asks: how does MSFT manipulate and control the marketspace to make sure that the wants and interests of the consumer are completely irrelevant?
OK, Apple sends stuff into the marketplace that works a lot of the time. Maybe that's enough to get the benefit of the doubt from reporters. Still, it doesn't explain why they actually show up to the company's product demos like sheep.
Isn't that precisely why there's been a lot of negative press about Apple lately -- because, after the iPhone hoopla died down, media's been looking to publish anything about Apple, that being the only way they can get a wider reading public?
Admit it.
THE reasons why Apple gets benefit of doubt is:
- Apple is a GOOD business that does RIGHT by its customers, partners and shareholders.
- Microsoft is a BAD business that MISLEADS and GOUGES its customers and everyone else.
The evidence of this over the years is so overwhelming that to argue anything else is madness.
AMEN
- by S!egfried July 30, 2008 11:44 PM PDT
- Wow. I'm impressed. There is hope for you yet!
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