Microsoft out-Apples Apple

Do you remember a time where Apple would offer the unexpected? Audiences cheering and sitting on the edge of the seat to see the famous one more thing! Apple introductions were always something special. Today was the latest introduction, and for the first time I did not even care to watch. This is also the first year since the iPhone 3G that I did not have the latest iPhone. There has been nothing I found exciting in recent Apple introduction, and for this Apple fanboy, that is very sad.

So what do I find exciting? In the latest technology implementations I have found the Amazon Echo to be well above par. Although I have not tried the Google home copycat device, I expect that is just as strong. The reason that is special to me is that I did not even know I would need it, yet I find it is making my life so much easier. It is truly adding value to me. As part of the announcement today, Apple introduced the new touch bar! How exciting. Of course I had a Toshiba laptop around 2004 that had similar functions, and at the time I found it to be well useless. I expect the same now.

As an Apple fanboy I did not typically follow Microsoft launches, although I have tried to like Microsoft products over the years, but usually left disappointed. I tried the first Microsoft Surface only to return it a few weeks later. This started to shift for me this year not due to a Microsoft product, but instead due to a Lenovo computer. Earlier this year I was meeting with people from Lenovo and I did not want to walk into the organization with an Apple laptop. The evening before I purchased a Lenovo Yoga 900 with the intent of returning it or submitting it for reimbursement to my employer. After just a few days I decided not to return it or seek reimbursement and instead kept it as my first return to the Windows world. Now I use it constantly and I have even ordered the new Windows version of the Yoga Book, which eliminates an actual keyboard and replaces it with a touch pad that can change from keyboard to a drawing device at the touch of a button. Lenovo created something different and the experience with my Yoga caused me to jump right in.

Last night I caught a few shares of the new Microsoft Surface Studio. All I can say is wow! I fell in love. This is the type of product that I used to expect from Apple. It is a product I did not know I needed, but after seeing it on the video, I know I want it. I almost preordered it today, but decided to hold off simply due to the price point. This is not the time that I want to spend that much money. At the same time I know I will have one of them in my future. Very few expected such a wow factor out of Microsoft, but they very much out "wow'ed" Apple with this launch.

It is difficult for companies to truly be innovative especially as they scale. We have seen this with the old Microsoft and in my view we have been seeing it lately with Apple. As companies grow internal pressures, or strife often makes it very difficult to be innovative. Even Microsoft struggled with this as the launched the original Surface. They did not want to upset long time partners, but they also wanted to innovate. At Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella but a line in the sand and said this is who we are. It was firm and we see the results.

It is important for companies to have strong leadership and to also understand what made them great in the first place. Some will say it was Steve Jobs who made Apple great, I would suggest that is was an obsessive attention to detail and the needs of the Consumer, whether they knew they needed it in the first place. As I said earlier, I have no need for a touch bar. Apple still has nice design but they are missing the obsessive nature that made them great in the first place. The Surface Studio, at least on the surface of this video, seems to have both. Microsoft has out appled Apple!

See for yourself! Here are the full videos from both Apple and Microsoft: