“Macintosh share is still just a small fraction of Windows’ share, but Microsoft is treating Apple like not just a challenger, but as the opinion leader. Microsoft is responding to Apple’s marketing, and what’s worse, it’s bragging about it in public. What an incredible turnaround from Steve Jobs’ first days back at Apple, less than ten years ago, when Bill Gates appeared on the big screen and Jobs publicly kowtowed to him.”
I’d have to agree that the transformation is amazing but I think it’s premature to think that Apple is really winning anything – but Redmond is correct to respond to them as a challenger. Microsoft knows they have traditionally been slow to respond to proper challenges which is, after all, how they managed to lose the Internet the first time round (to Netscape) and the second time round (to Google).
What else would you do in their position?
Of course, you’d be working on trying to identify possible challengers and killing them when they’re small. If you let them get too large then when you make your move everyone starts screaming monopoly.