Was Microsoft Waiting For Such a Time As This?

There's a Santa Claus movie where an elf invents a machine that can make super-sophisticated toys at breakneck speed. This machine makes him better than Santa and almost puts him out of business, but it becomes apparent after time that great though the elf's machine looked and wonderful though it seemed, it couldn't handle the load of work which was demanded of the North Pole and it fell apart. Santa came back and fixed the whole Christmas market thing.

I wonder if this is what Microsoft has been counting on during Apple's 'I'm a PC and I'm a Mac' commercials for, since the beginning of those rather clever and funny ads by Apple, Microsoft has said nothing. Not a word. Not a reply. Nothing.

Microsoft has form when it comes to pretending that an opponent doesn't exist. Just look at Symbian and how Microsoft, for years, just couldn't say the S-Word (Symbian) and just pretended it wasn't there (and this is true to some extent). But is this what Microsoft has done with Apple, or were they just wise?

Symbian has only gone from strength to strength, but these last few months have been rather bruising for Apple. it started off with evidence of proof-of-concept viruses, moved on to the disaster that was MobileMe, then the iPhone 2.0 firmware stank like a decaying badger with a good release only coming out this weekend just gone. Now, we hear of Apple blocking applications from the iPhone (a fart machine and a podcast player) because they serve no purpose and duplicate built in functionality, despite there being all manner of pointless joke apps which serve no real purpose and calculators which replace that which is already in there.

All in all, Apple has started to look like a company that's all talk and no trousers, plenty of style but not enough content. In fact, I fear that Apple is starting to look like that elf I mentioned at the top of the story.

So, what better time is there for Microsoft to start its new advertising campaign!? The commercials may not be particularly easy to decipher in regard to what they're actually saying (even the full length ones), but they are good and could well be saying "look, Apple has had a go and they can't handle working with the misters. Come back to old faithful."

Is this what's happening? I don't see any evidence that this is what's happening, yet, but I can see a situation where the tide of growth could be coming to a premature end for Apple as Microsoft comes in like the big brother who allowed his little brother a go at batting and shows him how to do it like a grown up.

It pains me to write all this because I'm what many might call an Apple Fanboy, but I have to call it as I see it here and while I believe that Microsoft has gotten off lightly for its lack of innovation (what they call innovation, I call shopping for others' ideas) and its criminal activity, it has shown that it can handle the traffic of a large customer base.

I think that Apple's opportunity to shine may be short and if it doesn't sort it out soon, it may have had its day as the premium technology provider.