Microsoft, Apple, and Google are competing to dominate the internet experience through their mobile platforms and devices. Microsoft's flagship product is the Windows operating system for PCs, while Apple focuses on proprietary hardware and closed software ecosystems. Google's strength is in online advertising and services like search, and it promotes open platforms through Android. Mobile applications and app stores are increasingly important as consumers demand more functionality on mobile. Whichever company can provide the most seamless experience across devices while maintaining openness and innovation may prevail in this ongoing battle.

1. Apple, google and Microsoft ; Battle for
your internet Experience
- Case Study
MEMBERS OF GROUP 13:
HAJI NASSERUDDIN B. HJ. ABDUL JABAR – P13D142P
HAJI ZULKIFFLEE B. HJ. SOFEE - P13D136P
CHONG MIN FATT - P13D154P

2. INTRODUCTION
APPLE
• Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in
Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics,
computer software, and personal computers. Its best-known hardware
products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod media player, the iPhone
smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its consumer software includes the
OS X and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media browser, the Safari web
browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites.
• Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April
1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple
Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. on January
9, 2007, to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer electronics.

3. Apple
•As of May 2013, Apple maintains 408 retail stores in fourteen countries, as
well as the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the
world's largest music retailer. Apple is the largest publicly traded corporation
in the world by market capitalization, with an estimated market capitalization
of $446 billion by January, 2014. As of September 29, 2012, the company had
72,800 permanent full-time employees and 3,300 temporary full-time
employees worldwide. Its worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totalled $170
billion. As of Q1 2014, Apple's five-year growth average is 39% for top line
growth and 45% for bottom line growth. In May 2013, Apple entered the top
ten of the Fortune 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places
above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position.

4. GOOGLE
Google is an American multinational corporation specializing
in Internet-related services and products. These include
online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and
software. Most of its profits are derived from AdWords.
Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were
Ph.D. students at Stanford University. Together they own about 14
percent of its shares but control 56 of the stockholder voting power
through super voting stock. They incorporated Google as a privately
held company on September 4, 1998. An initial public offering followed
on August 19, 2004. Its mission statement from the outset was "to
organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and
useful", and its unofficial slogan was "Don't be evil". In 2006 Google
moved to headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the
Googleplex.

5. Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions
and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine. It offers online
productivity software including email (Gmail), an office suite (Google Drive), and
social networking (Google+). Desktop products include applications for web
browsing, organizing and editing photos, and instant messaging. The company
leads the development of the Android mobile operating system and the browser-
only Chrome OS for a netbook known as a Chromebook. Google has moved
increasingly into communications hardware: it partners with major electronics
manufacturers in production of its high-end Nexus devices and acquired
Motorola Mobility in May 2012. In 2012, a fiber-optic infrastructure was installed
in Kansas City to facilitate a Google Fiber broadband service.

6. • The corporation has been estimated to run more than one million
servers in data centers around the world (as of 2007) and to process
over one billion search requests and about 24 petabytes of user-
generated data each day (as of 2009). In December 2013 Alexa listed
google.com as the most visited website in the world. Numerous Google
sites in other languages figure in the top one hundred, as do several
other Google-owned sites such as YouTube and Blogger. Its market
dominance has led to prominent media coverage, including criticism of
the company over issues such as copyright, censorship, and privacy.

7. MICROSOFT
• Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation
headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops,
manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software,
consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its
best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of
operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet
Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox
game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the
world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also
one of the world's most valuable companies.

8. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4,
1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for Altair 8800. It
rose to dominate the personal computer operating system
market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the
Microsoft Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering,
and subsequent rise in its share price, created an estimated
three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft
employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from
the operating system market and has made a number of
corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype
Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition to date.

9. As of 2013, Microsoft is market dominant in both the IBM PC-compatible
operating system and office software suite markets (the latter with
Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of other
software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including Internet
search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox, Xbox 360 and
Xbox One consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and
mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft
entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with
the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers

10. Microsoft Corporation is a software company based in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft's flagship product, the Windows operating system, is the single most popular
operating system for home desktop use. Its other desktop products, namely Microsoft Office,
Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player, are either bundled directly with the Windows
operating system, or are often sold together with Windows as pre-installed software on new
computer systems.
The Microsoft Office suite of applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access) began life as
Microsoft Works, an Apple Macintosh application that provided the functions of a word
processor, spreadsheet, and database all in one.

11. Question 1
Compare the business models and areas of strength of
Apple, Google, and Microsoft

12. • Apple: It has the basis of creating a very strong hardware base for the
internet future and thus logically they play their role in this battle by
laying emphasis on the hardware that facilitates mobile computing.
Apple has gone into the stance that applications, one of the major
earners for tablet and phone manufacturers, should be device restricted.
For example, one application should be unique to the brand of the device
and should be allowed to function in another device from another
separate brand. They even stopped Google in its plans to allow Google
applications to work on Apple products. Thus by doing this Apple is
trying to capitalize on their loyal customer base and create a Apple weds
Apple scenario.
Answer

13. • Google: Google is the believer in the concept that in the future
the devices used to run the applications and other internet
options should be a fraction of what they are being charged now
and instead the revenues generated should be from the in-app
advertisements. Google even bought AdMob, an application
advertisements development company, to work on such a
concept. This future, Google and Microsoft have tried their hand
at going hardware friendly but they still do not put the same
emphasis on the hardware as Apple.

14. • Microsoft: Microsoft has laid its bet on the operating system on
which the mobile computing devices shall run. Microsoft also has
announced plans to develop the hardware for mobile computing,
something it has not done so far, and thus has entered into the field
of both Google and Apple. By integrating the hardware and software
deal Microsoft has actually change the dynamics of the whole
market. And this can be problem some for Google and Apple as they
shall have to change their own perspective and outlook towards the
level of competition that they shall have to face in the coming years
in mobile computing.

15. Question 2
Why is mobile computing so important to these
three firms? Evaluate the mobile platform
offerings of each firm.

16. •Mobile computing is basically doing the activities
which involve internet without being fixed to a
particular place. The importance of mobile
computing for all the three mentioned firms
which is Apple , Google and Microsoft as it is the
future of the internet technology and for these
firms to flourish and expand they need to be very
effective with mobile computing.
Answer

17. • APPLE: The mobile platform that Apple provides with its products is “iOS” (Kevin K,
2012). This mobile platform is the closed platform that is it is applicable for apple
products and only apple apps could work on this. Some of the remarkable features
amongst them are:
a. There is an option over which you can reply later on the calls which you can’t take
immediately.
b. Integration with the facebook over which you can share all you iphone activities
c. There is a passbook app through which you can use you iphone as a credit card.
d. There is also an upgradation of the apple maps app which is very impressive.

18. • GOOGLE: The mobile platform that Google provides is “Android”. This mobile platform
is a universal platform or you can say it’s an open platform when compared to the
mobile platform offered by Apple. The latest version provided by the Android software is
the version 4.1 “jelly bean” (Android, 2012). Some of the notable features of this version
are:
a. A simple screen swipe would provide you with search results related to Google.
b. The voice recognition tool in this version would rub offline.
c. Another of the new feature is GOOGLE NOW in which the preferences are
chosen based on the data like the time location and personal history and
over this the search results are provided

19. • MICROSOFT
• Microsoft is entering this market recently by launching the tablet named “Surface
tablet”. The mobile platform that Microsoft is offering is the Windows Phone
8(Kevin K, 2012). This operating system will be compatible with the laptops and the
desktops.
• Some of the unique features of this operating system are:
Support dual core chips
 Support multiple screen resolution
 Provides advanced map technology
 Offers Passbook wallet.

20. Question 3
What is the significance of mobile application,
app stores, and closed versus open app standards
to the success or failure of mobile computing?

21. • Any computer software that performs specific tasks is called
Applications (Bovee 2012, p 256). They can range from large business
computer programs such as “Sun Systems” for processing large
accounting problems to a simple program that can be used to order
something as simple as a pizza, in today’s world applications have
become a part and parcel of the day today.
• Today’s mobile and tablet users are becoming more and more inclined
towards a product which has more number of application than the other
product option. Although it can be said that such a thing has happened
because of the fact that the devices today have become so specified that a
certain range of products shall have the same specs regardless of their
make. This change can be determined as a major shift in the consumer
psyche and even the big three have not underestimated this change.

22. • The development of applications and software’s to match these
expectations is a task that all the companies in the fray to be the
leader in the mobile computing market, wither it be Apple, Google,
Microsoft or any other new player, shall have to look into great detail
and precision.
• The importance of mobile applications can be justified on this basis
itself that Google has based their future growth prediction on the
very same. Mobile applications have such a great scope of growth in
the future that they can one day eclipse the sales of the hardware
part of mobile computing and form a major market themselves here
players like Google and apple shall have tough competition even
from small fray players if a common platform for application usage
is formed, the very same reason why Apple is resisting Google’s
repeated efforts for a common mobile platform.

23. • According to experts (Kevin, Timothy et.al) mobile applications
are even today a big part of the on the go access market. Finish
mobile giant Nokia too has a say in the application future as it
still has the lion’s share in the applications that are used in its
mobile phones, which in spite of the recent drop are a very big
number. Applications and app stores are also being viewed as a
source of major entertainment by many users of mobile
computing devices, with games like angry birds and temple run
taking the market by storm it is very evident that applications
and app stores are a thing for the future.

24. •Lastly it can be said that although all three firms have
great opportunity in the market which is still young
and in its infancy, the first mover shall have very
definitive advantage to take control of this veritable
goldmine.

25. Question 4
Which company and business model do you think
will prevail in this epic struggle? Explain your
answer.

26. Google: The search engine giant has a lot of positives going for it
rather than the negatives. The clear positives that can make it a
winner are:
a. A well-established name is something which not a lot of players can
boast of but Google is one of them, although Apple and Microsoft have
chartered territories of their own but Google can fight them out both
as an equal if not better.
Answer

27. b. The Company has entered into all the three basic markets of
mobile computing including hardware, operating system and
the application stores. Their hardware is something which a
few competitors can best , however the Android operating
system has taken the market by storm and the app store
which comes with it is a mean bully in itself (Android 2012)

28. c. Google has also bet on of the most time relevant feature of the
mobile computing market, the App store, and this is the biggest
advantage which the Google business model gives it and makes it
the prime contender for the number one position. With hundreds
of applications already online and hundreds more in the
development stage Google has started to take a sort of lead on the
other players in the race to be number one. And this may not
be decisive right now but with Google’s recent acquisition of
application developers and their heavy R&D expenditure on the
same, it is just a matter of time before it will take out companies
like Apple and Microsoft. (Android 2012)

29. Although the Google bandwagon is on its way there are certain
roadblocks that it can face that can halt its march and some of them are:
a. The Google brand is big but it still lacks the appeal of an Apple
product and this many say is one of the most major difference
between the two.
b. The Android system although perfected to a large extent still has a few
errors in the new versions that can hamper the growth of the
operating system and this where a competitor like Microsoft can
prevail over the Company

30. c. Lastly it can be said that Google’s move towards a common
mobile application platform can itself backfire and could
increase competition from local app players which can affect
the overall profitability from this step.
• Thus it can be said that Google does have a lot of positives that
can help it in the market and if it can take care of the negatives
and maybe tweak the one platform stance, it can just pull ahead
of Apple and Microsoft in this battle of the behemoths.

31. Question 5
What difference would it make to a business or to an
individual consumer if Apple, Google, or Microsoft
dominated the Internet experience? Explain your answer.

32. Answer
• Consumers would be forced to buy only one product and use
only one service. They would create a monopoly and the
positive would be they would create a standard. This would
affect quality; prices would be as high as possible because
they would have no competition. No competition means
nobody could force a monopolist from the outside to improve
products, diversify rang or products and lower price. Right
now it is too early to tell who would dominate the internet
experience but it is good to have competition than just one
market leader.

33. Thank you.