New Apple Strategy: Partner with Microsoft For Future Battles

The battlefield amongst the tech giants is constantly shifting. Each is innovating while looking for weaknesses in the competitors and seizing new ground. A formal Apple partnership with Microsoft would change the balance of power.

Satya Nadella introduced as new Microsoft CEO, February 2014. Image credit: Hit Refresh

Several articles this week suggest that the atmosphere and leadership at Microsoft is ripe for an Apple business opportunity.

• The Verge: Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore on the future of Windows and connecting phones to PCs


• Economic Times: Satya Nadella wants to make ethical AI choices, says ‘customers must be in control of their data’


• The Verge: The Future of Microsoft

The immediate take on these articles is that Microsoft’s vision, driven by CEO Satya Nadella, is now much broader than mere Windows. From the third article:

…of course Windows isn’t going away — but he [Nadella] also wanted to explain his latest buzzwordy vision for the future of the Microsoft: AI, Intelligent Cloud, and Intelligent Edge.

That’s because, of course, the OS in front of us has always been the customary interface to the world. Today, internet speeds, mobility, the cloud, and AI technology, have become dominant factors. It makes sense to think more broadly about how a local OS interfaces outside itself. That’s why we’ve seen Microsoft lean more towards interoperability and away from Windows-first, Windows-only.

Remember, one of the first things Sata Nadella did was to release Microsoft Office for iPad. That was something Steve Ballmer held back.

Similar Visions: Apple & Microsoft

More broadly, Apple and Microsoft complement each other. The pre-iPhone PC wars are over. Apple and Microsoft are like-minded when it comes to the privacy and security of their customers. Each has a common heritage in the PC/Mac world. Microsoft’s Windows phone failed, but the company can benefit by making its pervasive Windows OS work better with other company’s smartphones.

Amazon’s Alexa is poised to seize control of the home automation and AI market, something that could hasten the obsolescence of the traditional OSes. Family service robots are on Amazon’s (and probably Google’s) radar.

Apple could use help with Siri, robotics and business cloud expertise. Microsoft could use help with the adoption of a more pervasive, widely accepted, encrypted communication service like Apple’s Messages. And mobility in general.

While Apple and Microsoft will never merge, working more closely together on certain new projects could shift the balance of power in the high tech world in their favor. This never could have happened under Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. The current Microsoft CEO is smart, self-confident and open to new ideas that go beyond the old, limited Windows-centric vision.

The first article above goes into some detail about the new overture Microsoft has made to Apple. Sooner or later, one of these companies, Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft is going to figure out how to join forces with a competitor with whom they have a lot in common and, then, better secure the battlefield. It’s only a matter of time. Apple and Microsoft, working together, in new, smart ways would be a force to be reckoned with.

Next Page: The News Debris for the week of May 7th. Getting very creeped out.

Page 2 – News Debris For The Week of May 7th

Getting Very Creeped Out

• We’ve seen the robot called Atlas from Boston Dynamics before. But what I’m pondering this week is the confluence of these two videos. First, hold this new video in your mind.

and then view this video, demoing Google Duplex.

These two videos together suggest that the eventual marriage of these two technologies will make for some, um, interesting changes to our lives in the future.

Speaking of Google Duplex, there has been some strong feedback after that demo by Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the I/O 2018 conference. Are we in for a lifetime of evil deception by this kind of AI agent? See: “Google’s AI sounds like a human on the phone — should we be worried?”

More questions to ask: Is Google Duplex another Google Glass, doomed from the start by social forces? Next, why is it Google and not Apple or Microsoft making this splash? And finally, is Google seizing the AI high ground or is it blinded by an improper vision that will eventually surrender to calmer, smarter vision from Apple? If something can be done, should it always be done? Is this just normal technical progress with new processes and social behavior to be sorted out later? If you know the answers, chime in with comments below.

More Debris

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a note on a new, bipartisan bill. “The Secure Data Act Would Stop Backdoors.”

The bipartisan Secure Data Act would stop any government agency or court order from forcing a company to build backdoors into encrypted devices and communications.

The EFF likes this bill. You should too.

• Why do humans have emotions? This next article posits that emotions are necessary for survival. Okay, then, should robots/androids have emotions? See: “How Long Until a Robot Cries?” If not, should they be, at least, engineered to read and respond to human emotions? Here’s an excerpt.

But if our emotional states are indeed mechanical, they can be detected and measured, which is what scientists in the field of affective computing are working on. They’re hoping to enable machines to read a person’s affect the same way we display and detect our feelings—by capturing clues from our voices, our faces, even the way we walk. Computer scientists and psychologists are training machines to recognize and respond to human emotion.

• Above, I’ve looked at some technologies from Apple’s competitors, always, to put what Apple does in perpective. After all, Apple is the most valuable company, in terms of market cap, in the world. The story of its succes is never ending. So it is appropriate to close here with a deep look article over at Hodinkee Magazine. “Apple, Influence, And Ive.”

It never creeps us out. Sheer joy.

Early in the article, Jonny Ive explains:

I don’t look at watches for their relationship to popular culture, which I know is so much of the fun – but rather as somehow the distillation of craft, ingenuity, miniaturization, and of the art of making.

Herein are keen insights into the thinking that went into the Apple Watch, and it’s very good stuff.

The contrast between the craft of the Apple Watch, as described above, and special projects at Google that always seem to creep us out is fascinating to watch.

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Particle Debris is a generally a mix of John Martellaro’s observations and opinions about a standout event or article of the week (preamble on page one) followed on page two by a discussion of articles that didn’t make the TMO headlines, the technical news debris. The column is published most every Friday except for holiday weeks.

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