Why Google and Microsoft want to be Apple-fied

It’s clear as retina display. Microsoft and Google want to do an Apple. The time for bluster, arguments and experiments has passed. The situation has turned desperate in the iPad, er, tablet market. All the ‘transformers’ ‘galaxies’ and ‘playbooks’ haven’t humbled the iPad. Worse, research firm IDC forecasts that by 2016, iPad and iPad-Mini (moniker for rumoured 7-inch version) will still control over 60% of the market. If you can’t beat Apple’s game, what do you do?

Play by its rules and share the spoils. Don’t just code, weld. Microsoft went all the way, Google found a Taiwanese partner, Asus, to chip in. Two companies which swore by “open systems” took the first step towards controlling the entire user experience.

Of course, neither admits to the strategy change. Carefully worded scripts say the same blah-blah: adapting to market and giving consumers something they hadn’t seen before.

Like the two weren’t going green in their gills with Apple envy. Or weren’t worried that a whiz-bang for Apple was vending out pennies for them. What if the Cupertino guys thought of “one more thing” before they got a chance to understand the slate market?

From this perspective, the hardware route wasn’t a choice for Google and Microsoft. It was a compulsion, not just because of Apple but demons in their backyards.