Apple growing pains

This post at GigaOm made me think about a couple of issues related to Apple, and by extension Microsoft. Clearly Apple is having issues with MobileMe, and GigaOm seems to think they stem from a lack of online infrastructure expertise. This may or may not be true, as Apple has clearly handled iTunes well so far and doesn't seem to have scaling problems there. But it is possible that as they roll out more ambitious, and complex, online services they will run into problems like they have with MobileMe.

So two thoughts on this:

1) For companies whose main business has been PC-centric (e.g., Apple, Microsoft) it obviously isn't easy to switch to an online/service-centric mindset, like that of a newer, online-only company (e.g, Yahoo, Google). I think Microsoft has not been given the credit it deserves in successfully delivering services that, if nothing else, have scaled well and rarely had delivery issues. Microsoft, with Google and perhaps Amazon, is at the forefront in building out massive data centers and online infrastructure.

2) Apple, with its recent success, will now start to face issues it hasn't before. First, the will need to start buiding out their infrastructure in order to offer more online services at scale. They are just starting and their first effort (again, ignoring iTunes which probably isn't fair) is not good. Second, with its growing PC market share, it's just a matter of time before they start dealing with issues MS has been battling for years (e.g., viruses, malware).

I'm not rooting against Apple at all. Quite the opposite. I recently switched to a Mac at work and, after getting used to its quirks, like it. I also really like my iPhone and think it has changed the phone market.

But I do think that Microsoft is rarely given the credit it deserves, especially when you see competitors stumble in doing things that MS has relatively quickly become a leader in.

Comments

[Bob Brill]

Hi and thank you for the post. I am a recent RSS subscriber and forwarded the post to a contact who announced receiving a "Coolest iPhone App" Award. Regards, Bob