Apple vs Microsoft - The Surface Strategy

It's been a big week for technology with, among others, Apple releasing a new range of iMacs, a new iPad (already) and the 7" iPad Mini. Microsoft also released Windows 8 and their first tablet - the Microsoft Surface.

The technology press were at all of the main events creating lots of content and stimulating lots of debate, much of which was pretty polarized. Those in the Apple camp were hailing the launch of the iPad mini whilst dismissing Surface as a failure before a single unit had sold. Microsoft's camp also had its fair share of supporters claiming that 'Apple is in trouble' and that the iPad's days are numbered.

The truth of the matter is that the Surface will not 'kill' the iPad. Similarly, the existence of the iPad will not cause the Surface to fail.

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27 October

The Answer is Marketing

The question is a fundamental one, and one which doesn't appear to be asked by enough business owners or boards of directors.

It is simply this, "Who should own our website?".

A corporate website is amongst the most important interfaces the business has with the outside world. It is not limited to communicating with customers (for this would put it in the remit of 'Sales'), but instead with every external stakeholder who interacts with the business.

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9 July

The Danger of 'Not Invented Here'

Unsurprisingly, software developers enjoy writing software. So much so, in fact, that they will often choose to write every piece of software they need to solve a particular problem.

On the face of it you could argue that this is a good thing - after all, writing software is what software developers are paid for!

The problem comes when you put our hapless software developer into a commercial environment. When writing software for a business, producing lots of code costs lots of money. On top of this, writing more 'fresh' code will inevitably lead to more bugs.

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27 June