The End of the Platform Wars? (Premium)

For years, the personal technology market has been defined by platform wars. Windows PCs vs. Mac. Internet Explorer vs. Netscape. Android vs. iPhone. But I think those days are over. And I just gotta ask, can’t we all just get along?

The answer, of course, is yes. But this new normal needs to be communicated to the few remaining partisan holdouts who continue to believe in whatever monoculture they support. For some reason.

I’m reminded of that incredible moment in 1997 when Steve Jobs addressed the Macworld Boston audience at the Hynes Convention Center and uttered one of the most famous off-the-cuff takedowns of partisan technology fans ever delivered.

“We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose,” he said to those booing a telecast image of Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

We should all view the world this way. Granted, the world is just a bit different today than it was in 1997, and it’s fair to say that most calls to open up come from a position of weakness. 20 years on, Apple dominates in consumer electronics devices, and the company played a leading role in moving the industry to where we are today. Microsoft now plays a minority role with consumers, a reversal of fortune that some fans still mourn.

So you may find it ironic, or even hypocritical, that I would be calling for the same kind of sanity. After all, I am the Microsoft guy.

Two things to that notion.

First, I played whatever role I played in the PC platform wars unwittingly. That is, my embrace of Microsoft and its products, such as that was, was only logical, not emotional: I chose Windows because that made more sense at the time, because Windows was personal technology. It was the center of everything.

The mistake I made, which I see being repeated by today’s Microsoft enthusiasts, is that I believed that the dominance of Windows would lead to Microsoft dominating other markets too. And it happened at first, in certain business-related markets, like office productivity software and servers. It did not happen, however, with the consumer market. Like many, I followed Microsoft down every rabbit hole imaginable because they seemed like a sure bet.

Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, doing so was a mistake. And in the wake of failure after failure after failure, I find myself in the same position as I was in the mid-1990s, after Commodore failed, leaving the Amiga as a dead platform: Trying to prevent others from making the same mistakes as they figured out what to do next.

Anyway, my support of Microsoft, or Windows, or whatever, has always been pragmatic and honest. I have always pointed out where they fail, or stray, and I always will. But then I take that same approach with other companies and platforms, too. And I’ve recommended that others do the same. At least give me that much credit.

And to be clear, since I know some people will misunderstand my point, Microsoft isn’t going away. Nor is my support of its most useful products and services. Windows still sits at the center of my computing experiences, for example. This isn’t about Microsoft “losing.” It’s about Microsoft being part of something bigger. Which they are and will continue to be.

Second, in pointing out that we may be seeing the end of the technology platform wars as we know them, I’m really seeing the reality of this evolving market. The “us vs. them” mentality that dominated personal computing from the beginning—literally from before the days of Apple vs. Atari vs. Commodore—is fading away. This kind of thinking isn’t just unhealthy and outdated. It’s extinct, an evolutionary dead end.

Consider how our world is evolving.

The emerging market for ambient computing is marked today by the transient need for smart speakers (and, soon, other devices) and by digital personal assistants. But I’ve argued that this “next wave,” as I call it, is not sticky. That is, there is very little lock-in with Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, or any other assistant. Each will work with the devices—including smart home devices—you wish to use. You can easily leave any of these assistants at any time, and you can even mix and match as you wish.

Progressive Web Apps are a similar equalizer. With the Microsoft Store still stumbling along drunkenly, PWAs represent a future apps platform for Windows that actually makes sense. But as I also pointed out recently, PWAs are more profound than that. They are the future of apps everywhere: On the web, yes, but also on Android, Mac, iOS, and Linux. PWAs are the future of apps. Period.

Put simply, it’s time to bid adieu to bad ideas, to partisan bickering. There will always be doubters, haters even. People who, against all logic cling to the bad ideas of the past. But as Neil deGrasse Tyson once said of science, “the good thing about [it] is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” That can be applied to any truth, any fact.

So yes, companies are still going to compete in various markets, and yes, there will be winners and losers. But the world has moved on. Let’s stop fighting over nothing and move on with it.