Battle between Apple and Microsoft is over

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Apple and Microsoft cooperate
Office running on a Mac shows that the long fight between Apple and Microsoft has been over for years.
Photo: Microsoft

Microsoft’s head of marketing says his company is no longer interested in battling with Apple. This is surely a shocking statement to anyone who remembers the days when these two brawled relentlessly. But those days are over.

The change was brought about by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who accepted the need to bring his company’s products to whatever devices could run them, not just Windows.

The early years of the personal computer saw Apple and Microsoft constantly struggling against each other. First is was MS-DOS vs. Mac, and later Windows vs. Mac. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates seemed mortal enemies.

But that was decades ago, and the world has changed a great deal. Microsoft sees itself cooperating with other tech giants like Apple and Google more than it needs to compete with them.

Apple and Microsoft in coopetition

Microsoft’s chief marketing officer Chris Capossela explained the new attitude in an interview with Cheddar, “We need to bring our products on the platforms that our customers are using. So Office on the iPad or iPhone.”

Really, the war between Apple and Microsoft was over years ago. As Capossela alluded to, the end came way back in 2014 with the release of iPad versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This showed that Redmond had given up trying to make everyone buy a Windows computer.

The company’s new attitude is that it’s more important to Microsoft that the maximum number of people use its productivity software than use Windows.  To demonstrate, it has over 100 entries in the App Store, including versions of OneDrive and its translator app.

And Microsoft seems to have found its niche: making software that people need to get work done. “Millennials tell us that when they think of ‘adulting,’ they think of Microsoft. And we love that,” said Capossela. “When it’s time to get a job … they think of Microsoft. And that’s a wonderful position for us to be in.”

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