Apple, Microsoft, and Product Design

1 April 2008 at 10:36 pm Peter G. Klein 8 comments

| Peter Klein |

I’m not an Apple guy. I have no doubt the Mac is a fine product but, come on, I’m not some froofy artist type! (Teppo, take note.) And I know how to use a right mouse button. I do like the iPhone, and would definitely consider buying one if it weren’t tethered to AT&T. At present, however, the only Jobs et al. product I’ve owned is an Apple II back in high school. (With 48K and dual floppies, it sizzled!)

This week I’m teaching the Apple 2006 HBS case in my undergraduate strategy course. As the case materials emphasize, Apple’s product design and packaging capabilities are an important source of its competitive advantage. The Zen thing is certainly a refreshing change from the industry norm. In preparing the case I was reminded of a funny item that circulated a couple of years ago, What if Microsoft Designed the iPod Package? You don’t have to be one of the bad Kleins to enjoy it.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Innovation, Strategic Management.

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8 Comments Add your own

1. Kieran | 1 April 2008 at 11:08 pm

The sad thing here is that this video was actually produced by some of Microsoft’s design team members, and circulated (at least at the beginning, internally) as a way to make the point that the demands the company was putting on them would lead to crappily-packaged products. Take a look at the front of the iPhone, for instance. How many other companies do you think would make a phone like this and not have their own logo or company name somewhere on the front?

And I know how to use a right mouse button

I know you’re trolling, but Mac OS has supported two-button mice for years, and Macs come standard with a mouse that can be used in two-button (in fact, multi-button) mode if the user wants to.
2. Per Bylund | 2 April 2008 at 9:25 am

“Eek! A Two-Button Mac Mouse?” in Wired Magazine already back in 2000.

As for Microsoft copying Apple, which is a common claim (and probably true), I’m just glad that Microsoft is doing Apple the service. After all, if Microsoft didn’t make the design (be it windows-based software or GUI or whatever) available to the world, then how would Apple ever get to know whether their inventions actually work for people? There’s almost no one using Apple, so Microsoft is doing them and consumers a great service.
3. Graeme Pietersz | 2 April 2008 at 11:48 am

Of course we Linux users know how to use three button mice….(yes, really, the third button is a short cut for paste and open in a new tab)

Incidentally, I assume the dig about artist types is a joke as well, but you do know that Macs are now (since the release of OSX) quite popular with geeks as well, because it is now a Unix – rather like Linux, arguable more so.

Personally I mostly need a PC that works with minimal hassle, but I have to admit that there are times when that Unix stuff is very useful.
4. David Hoopes | 2 April 2008 at 1:11 pm

“I’m not some froofy artist type! ”

You know, Steve Postrel uses a Mac. I don’t know that he’s a froofy artist type. But, he does do qualitative work which is the same thing.
5. Peter Klein | 2 April 2008 at 3:46 pm

Kieran, Per, and Graeme, I’m trying to have some fun with Teppo, and you keep bothering me with facts. No more of that, please!

Graeme is right, of course, that real geeks use unix and its derivatives. Earlier in my career I kept a SparcStation on my desk just to look cool, even though I was using a Windows machine as my primary workstation.

At economics conferences people often use a TeX variant, such as SliTex, rather than PowerPoint, as a matter of principle.
6. Per Bylund | 2 April 2008 at 11:01 pm

Graeme is right, of course, that real geeks use unix and its derivatives.

I think there are two kinds of geeks. The “old school” geeks, the ones who don’t like GUI at all (the ones I dislike), probably still use UNIX machines and enjoy their text based command prompts as much as the people still in love with AS-400s enjoy their three-letter codes. (I readily admit that the AS-400 is stable as a rock, though…)

The “GUI geeks” – the “younger” ones – are probably playing with different home made or open source upgrades of OS/2.

Even though I have limited experience of it, I tend to be one of the people still arguing that OS/2 was possibly the best GUI-based OS ever – and that the meltdown of the IBM-MS project set us back maybe ten years in OS innovation.
7. josephlogan | 3 April 2008 at 11:37 am

This comment is being composed on a brand new MacBook Air in the BA Lounge at Manchester Airport, and the only fact I have to share, Peter, is that I have become a babe magnet (and I don’t consider myself anything special in that respect). People go nuts when they see this thing. I got pulled aside at security just because they wanted to look at it. Wish this feeling would last forever…

The thing that really sets the Apple products apart is that the designers seem to be very thoughtful about how people use things. A lot of the detritus of the Windows OS is pushed into the background so you just don’t see it. For what it’s worth, I’m taking a hiatus from academe in order to manage European IS/IT operations for a top-five pharmaceutical company. Definitely no black turtlenecks and goatees there.
8. REW | 3 April 2008 at 11:52 am

I agree with josephlogan: design, human/tool interaction, and emotion are more central to Apple than to the Wintel world.

Peter, how ill you mark student case studies if they use information from WIRED’s latest issue?

http://www.wired.com/wired

The true source of Apple’s competitive advantage is fear! The packaging gets thrown away…