1. Describe and compare the convergence strategies of Apple, Google and Microsoft between the mid 90ies and 2010?
Having in-house expertise in the development of software and hardware, Apple was enjoying a competitive advantage over the other two players. It had distinguished itself by developing some extraordinary designs and a range of easy to use products. It would be a more realistic approach, if we look at the bigger picture of the Apple’s convergence strategy, we would find that the company had triggered a great success from its integrative actions such as iTunes stores and ILife as well as its strategic partnerships with certain similar and dissimilar companies.The company had got a significant position in the mobile phone industry through the integration of its strong media applications into the Apple’s IPhone and also experienced increased value through the development of new versions of IPods and related software products such as IWork and IBooks, both were designed for internet purposes. Apple had also developed an online application store for the distributions of its IPhone and IPods applications, which helped the company to become successful in the converging internet industry. Google Inc. had also pursued a similar approach to that of the Apple Inc. for its convergence strategy to cope with the increasing development in the Internet technology and market competition. It had kept its primary focus over the development of its communication and search engine activities. However, the major difference between the approaches of the two companies was that unlike Apple, Google Inc. had focused upon the establishment of an open platform for the development of products and services and the information control. The primary convergence strategy of Google was to spread information to as many areas as possible for it, and therefore. It had reported a market share of 53.6% of the overall internet search market in 2007. Besides focusing upon the internet search industry only, Google had also developed a number of products like Gmail, Google Talk, Orkut, Google Images, Google Map, Google earth and Google Chrome, which had helped it in the successful execution of its convergence strategy. Google’s approach to convergence has followed the same rational in securing applications. It had enjoyed a full advantage of the open mobile platform and integrated a number of applications for the mobile phone users, while focusing upon the development of a future cloud computing and sharing platform, it had continued its journey to improve the integration of its services, leading to a lot of future market adaptation. Whereas, the Microsoft’s convergence strategy was a bit volatile as compared to that of the Google and Apple Inc, because unlike the two companies, instead of focusing upon a single market segment, it had initially focused upon maintaining the enterprise segment, where further dedication was signalized by the introduction and acquisition of bCentral and Great Plans respectively. The company had entered into the market of pocket PCs in 2002, but due to certain external contingencies, it was failed to execute it’s successfully in the market. After that the company had shown its interest in multiple opportunities simultaneously, but they often lacked a common reference point for convergence, which had made it difficult to integrate. Later on, the company had changed its focus again to the development of a new operating system for the traditional computer industry, and resultantly it had developed Windows XP in the first quarter of 2001, which integrated technology forms an acquired company Visio.. With the development of the mobile phone industry, the company had made its entry by developing a windows operating platform for the mobile phones. However, it was not warmly welcomed by the mobile phone manufacturers because they were afraid that it may take the market leadership in this industry as well. Therefore, the company had made contracts with the mobile phone carriers for the development and promotions of their products. But it was still unable to make success in the mobile phone industry due to tough competition and strong positions of Apple and Google Inc. The company’s entry into the music industry was also very weak and failed to get an impressive response from the market. Microsoft’s convergence efforts were not succeeded like that of Apple and Google due to a number of radical shifts in the main focus of the company because it was not directing its efforts towards a clear long term vision............................
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