Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation Research Paper

Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation - Research Paper Example Currently, Apple and Microsoft are world’s leading companies in the computer industry. Microsoft is headed by Bill Gates whereas Apple’s CEO is Steve Jobs. Many people believe that the competition between these two companies is actually the competition between these two charismatic leaders; Bill Gates and Steven Jobs. Microsoft succeeded in monopolising the operating system market in the world with the help of their renowned Windows based operating system. On the other hand Apple tried to conquer the global consumer electronics market with the help of diversified products. Apple faced many ups and downs in their history since its introduction. It faced stiff challenges in the 1990’s; however it was able to bounce back with the help of innovation and change management principles implemented in the organization during the latter periods of 1990’s and the at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On the other hand, Microsoft has not faced many challenges during their last 35 years of history. However, at present, Microsoft is facing several challenges from companies like Apple, Google etc. This paper compares the performances of Apple and Microsoft since their introduction. The first thing we all know is that during 1995-97, Apple lost control of the business market. IT managers needed something Apple wasn't able to supply: a capable back office system with authentication and management tools. Apple appeared to be ambivalent about this loss of the business market, and a series of poor CEOs failed to understand the evolution of business requirements and failed to bring clarity to Apple's vision (Martellaro, 2006) The battle for dominance between Apple and Microsoft was intensified in 1990’s. Apple introduced their Macintosh OS in response to Microsoft’s Windows in the 90’s. However, Apple failed to capture the market whereas Microsoft did succeed in monopolising the operating system market. Apple’s failure in providing the necessary solutions to the IT managers, opened many opportunities to Microsoft which they accepted with both hands. A series of windows based products like Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista etc entered the market which helped Microsoft to monopolize the operating system market. Microsoft did everything possible to sustain their monopoly in the operating system market. They have introduced many application software which are compatible only with the Windows operating system. For example, the MS Office package including software like MS word, MS excel, MS power point, MS access etc are compatible only with Windows operating system. Majority of the global computer users were badly in need of this application software and Microsoft was able to maintain their supremacy with the help of these software packages. Another business strategy successfully implemented by Microsoft was their meaningful collaboration with Microsoft chip manufacturers and other business associates. For example, Microsoft established business collaboration with Intel, one of the prominent microprocessor manufacture