Is hardware the new software?

The last couple of weeks have been pretty full of product launches from all the major tech companies. There’s been a particular focus though on hardware - with plenty of new devices and peripherals being launched. Apple have always declared they were in the hardware business. They made computers, then iPods, then phones and now watches. Microsoft and Google have famously been all about software, but that’s changed significantly over the last few years. Microsoft and now Google have graduated to making their own hardware. Both companies traditionally licensed (or gave away) their software to run on devices made by other manufacturers.

BONUS: We geek out for another 20 minutes at the end of the episode discussing the new hardware releases. It’s a bit of a response to some of the discussion we had back in episode 1.

Links:

• Why Competing with Apple Is So Difficult
• Microsoft Surface Studio
• What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong
• Surface Studio, Nintendo Switch, and Niche Strategies
• Google’s Pixel phone event in 10 minutes
• Apple’s MacBook Pro event in 10 minutes
• Apple’s iPhone 7 event in 9 minutes
• Microsoft’s Surface PC event in under 9 minutes
• Nintendo Switch

Keywords - hardware, apple, google, microsoft,