Paul Thurrott’s gambit - Apple’s Evolution vs. Microsoft’s Revolution

Paul Thurrott  recently talked about why he is unimpressed with Apple’s latest iOSand Lion announcements. Hardly surprising considering his known disdain for most things born in Cupertino. John Guber explained why Thurrott is right and is missing the point.

Having been a developer using OS X since the developer previews of 10.0, when it was just Next/OpenStep with a Finder-like GUI veneer, Paul sounds like a party crasher, bitching about how the music and food sucks, unlike his buddies last party, which was OFF the HOOK and CRAZY.

Paul wishes for a crazy Apple. An Apple that completely overhauls the OS with each release, throwing caution to the wind.

Given his experience with Microsoft’s OS strategy I assume he hoping Apple suffers the same fate as Microsoft, whose decade long failure of an OS strategy allowed Apple and to a lesser extent Google/Linux to make huge gains.

Just compare the release cycles for both companies to see why Microsoft failed so badly where Apple succeeded.

  • Windows XP - October 2001
  • Windows XP Media Center - October 2002
  • Windows Server 2003 - October 2002
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 - 30 September 2003
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 -12 October 2004
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition - 25 April 2005
  • Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs - 8 July 2006
  • Windows Vista for Business use - 30 November 2006
  • Windows Vista for Home use - 30 January 2007
  • Windows Home Server - 7 November 2007
  • Windows Server 2008 - 27 February 2008
  • Windows 7 - 22 October 2009
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 - 22 October 2009
  • Windows Home Server 2011 - 6 April 2011

Compare that mess to Apple’s strategy - remember each release included both the desktop and server versions.

  • Mac OS X v10.0 “Cheetah” - March 24, 2001
  • Mac OS X v10.1 “Puma” - September 25, 2001 (6 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.2 “Jaguar” - August 24, 2002 (11 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.3 “Panther” - October 24, 2003 (13 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger” - April 29, 2005 (18 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.5 “Leopard” - October 26, 2007 (30 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.6 “Snow Leopard” - August 28, 2009 (22 months)
  • Mac OS X v10.7 “Lion” - Summer 2011

Looking back on the Windows XP juggernaut Microsoft unleashed. Imagine where they would be if they had a focused iterative release cycle like Apple.

Microsoft’s revolutionary path, like most revolutions, failed more often than it succeeded. Media Center only caught on with die hards. Server aficionados still love 2003. XP users are still leary of upgrading after the Vista disaster. It took 8 years for Microsoft to produce a worthy successor to Windows XP with Windows 7. Which I love and think is the best version of Windows ever produced.

Apple by contrast followed the evolutionary path, building momentum and carving out permanent market share gains while Microsoft flailed for a decade.

As I type this, on a Lion install, I can say without doubt that Lion is the largest gamble Apple’s taken since the port from PPC to Intel.

Pundits like Paul should beware of brushing aside Apple’s evolutionary march. It destroyed the status quo in mobile and has been doing the same on the desktop for the last few years.

Paul I hope you enjoy the next Microsoft revolution. I hear developers really love the new direction they are taking with Windows 8.