James B. Stewart writes in the NYT that in 1998 Bill Gates said in an interview that he "couldn't imagine a situation in which Apple would ever be bigger and more profitable than Microsoft" but less than two decades later, Apple, with a market capitalization more than double Microsoft's, has won.
The most successful companies need a vision, and both Apple and Microsoft have one.
But according to Stewart, Apple's vision was more radical and, as it turns out, more farsighted.
Where Microsoft foresaw a computer on every person's desk, Apple went a big step further: Its vision was a computer in every pocket.
"Apple has been very visionary in creating and expanding significant new consumer electronics categories," says Toni Sacconaghi. "
Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult."
According to Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, Microsoft seemed to have the better business for a long time.
"But in the end, it didn't create products of ethereal beauty. Steve believed you had to control every brush stroke from beginning to end. Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection."
Can Apple continue to live by Jobs's disruptive creed now that the company is as successful as Microsoft once was?
According to Robert Cihra it was one thing for Apple to cannibalize its iPod or Mac businesses, but quite another to risk its iPhone juggernaut.
"The question investors have is, what's the next iPhone?
There's no obvious answer.
It's almost impossible to think of anything that will create a $140 billion business out of nothing."
But there are other gifted visionaries out there with visionary skills who will be pushing the envelope soon enough.
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