Microsoft’s Biggest Competitors? (Premium)

A recent Quartz article uses data from Microsoft’s annual 10-K regulatory filings to determine which companies, over time, where the firm’s “biggest competitors.” The theory here is that those companies mentioned the most over Microsoft’s lifetime make the cut.

It’s an interesting idea. But it’s also wrong. Which you can see by which companies came out on top: IBM, Apple, and Oracle, in that order.

Each, certainly, is or was a competitor. But virtually none of them were viable competitors during much of the times in which each came up in Microsoft’s annual 10-K filings.

For example, IBM and Microsoft were primary partners from about 1980 through 1990, when their OS/2 partnership dissolved thanks to the success of Windows. But they continued to partner in a different manner through 2005, when IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo: Until that time, Microsoft supplied the OS for IBM’s PCs, and for much of that time, IBM sold Windows-compatible software.

So when were IBM and Microsoft “competitors”? Only very briefly, from about 1990 through 1995, when OS/2 finally unraveled as a major concern. And OS/2 never seriously threatened Windows.

Apple is a more nuanced story, of course, but the Mac never seriously challenged Windows, especially since Apple was falling apart under Michael Spindler just as Windows took over the world. By the time Microsoft shipped Windows 95, the Mac was toast, and Apple almost went bankrupt in the late 1990s. In more recent years, the Mac experienced a resurgence under Steve Jobs, but it again never seriously challenged Windows. For all the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads and Microsoft’s antitrust distractions, Mac market share never ever hit the double digits. It was always been a bit player when the PC was the primary personal computing device.

But there’s another side to this coin: Apple under Steve Jobs did see great success in MP3 players (iPods) and smartphones (iPhone) and some success in tablets (iPad), wearables (Apple Watch), and even music subscription services (Apple Music). Microsoft fielded entries in all of those markets, sometimes multiple times, but never seriously challenged Apple. So they were “competitors,” of a sort. But Apple ran away with each of those markets, far outclassing anything Microsoft offered. (Whether you feel that Surface competes directly with iPad, Mac, or both, whatever. It has never seriously harmed any Apple business.)

And Oracle? Spare me. Yes, both Oracle and Microsoft make enterprise-class databases, and yes, they are competitors. But where databases are Oracle‘s central business, they’ve always been just part of a more diversified product offering at Microsoft, first with its on-premises server products and more recently with its private and public cloud offerings.

No, these companies do not in any way reflect Microsoft’s biggest competitors over the years. Instead, they’re just part of a longer list of companies...