Over the past 31 years, Microsoft has been an industry giant and a pioneer in developing newer versions of user-interfaces and today, as we see it, it stands as one of the most power industry movers, which is in close competition to its old rival, Apple.
Today though Apple would be considered as the bigger brand of the two, when we actually get down to the specifics, we can notice how Apple doesn’t really innovate, it simply observes the market and at the right time, pops into the market with fantastic marketing strategies
that makes even mediocre products flood the market like forest fire. The biggest example of this, is probably the Apple Watch. Though late to enter the virtual reality segment of the tech industry, Apple very skilfully observed the growth of other smart watches like Samsung and created the Apple watch with a sharp Apple feel to it. However mediocre the product might be, the effective marketing and brand image speak volumes for its sales.
But talking about Microsoft, today Microsoft has a global market share of over 40% and over 90% of household PC’s. It spends about 11.4 billion dollars in research and development and its been increasing its investment into R and D for the past decade- and the results are evident.
Be it the Surface Pro vs iPad Pro or the Apple Watch vs Microsoft Band 2, if you actually look into the features, you’d see how Microsoft has been innovating to provide a newer and better user interface while Apple has just been packaging the same products in new boxes with minute improvements. This commercial will give you a small look into the Surface pro-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7NLLMkLO8.
Though the Apple Watch might look like a neater piece of technology to own, for any users wanting to make most of the accessory and focus on fitness, Microsoft proves a winner. The presence of GPS, a full colour touchscreen and Cortana is compelling – and for fitness fans, it might just tip the balance.
Over the past decades, the only point of contention that Apple boasted its products on, was that Microsoft was old and outdated. But in light of recent innovations and growth of Microsoft products, Microsoft looks in great shape to re-position itself to the top which is evident through their recent advertisements and marketing campaigns. Microsoft has spent about 15.7 billion dollars in marketing in 2015 and following a growing trend in investment into marketing, it looks like Microsoft is all set to re-position itself as the industry leader.
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Sources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/506534/microsoft-sales-marketing-expenditure/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267806/expenditure-on-research-and-development-by-the-microsoft-corporation/
https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-ca?ocid=OCTEVENT_MSCOM
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-10-vs-apple-mac-2016-7/#apple-is-moving-to-match-cortana-by-including-siri-in-the-forthcoming-macos-sierra-but-shes-pretty-limited-on-the-mac-when-it-comes-to-things-like-checking-your-calendar-and-you-have-to-use-your-voice-to-talk-to-her-meanwhile-cortana-lets-you-use-your-keyboard-5
