More than any other company Apple may be responsible for the success of Microsoft (Bill Gates’ mother, who introduced him to the CEO of IBM, probably helped Microsoft more than any other individual though). Remember, Apple is the company that Microsoft left in the dust for many years as the former refused to license its operating system to multiple hardware makers.
You’d think that Apple would have learned from this colossal mistake, which almost killed the company till a cutely designed iPOD came along. But Apple hasn’t learned; they insist on keeping their operating system for use only on Apple hardware.
Apple has a reputation for coming up with attractive gadgets, for sure, but Google has, simply put, made a smarter decision to license its mobile Android OS to multiple manufacturers and in only a very short period they have become the market share leader for mobile devices. Because of all this, some are beginning to predict that just a few years from now Apple will be a minor player.
So what about the future?
Well, Google, which is increasingly the target of so many, could be sideswiped by the rising tide of alliances among and innovative releases by the likes of RIM, Microsoft and Facebook, and/or perhaps it could be seriously damaged by massive government-initiated lawsuits regarding antitrust and privacy violations.
And, with RIM having recently bought a world-class user-interface design team (The Astonishing Tribe), it’s also only a matter of time before Apple’s near monopoly on design beauty becomes a thing of the past.
So, now might be the time to sell all your Apple stock and pour it into RIM, which is looking seriously undervalued right now.