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The market capitalization of Apple surpassed Microsoft today and Apple is now the "technology king". Apple has the "easy" feel of Google and tangible products like the iPhone and now iPad that consumers swoon for-worldwide. In the US the iPhone tie up is with AT&T and people live with the spotty AT&T wireless service that they pay extra for every month. The compensatory effect of the Apple experience overtakes the deficiencies of the wireless carrier and consumers seem to rationalize that it's OK – quite incredible when you look from the point of view of AT &T wireless who got into an exclusive alliance with Apple. The excitement and energy around the iPad launch also was incredible. It sold a record one million units in the US within one month.
Innovation that occurs in the back end and makes the consumer experience simple and great is the secret at Apple. You don't feel technologically challenged when you use an Apple product which makes technology adoption by the consumer a pleasurable experience even when one uses only a fraction of the features offered.
Now consider Microsoft and the everyday use product – Microsoft Word. If you receive a Word 2007 document and your machine has only Word 2003- you can't open the document. You have to sheepishly admit that you have an older system that can't handle Word 2007 and try and explain to the document sender how to save the document as a Word 2003 document. In a world of open source software I wonder why this issue was not resolved in the Office 2007 suite.
Anyway,consumers take notice and the stock market cheers. One bright spot as the DOW went below 10,000 today.