With Google and Microsoft as emerging widgeteers, might Apple finally be losing one of its historic advantages? Hardly.
Apple’s Not-So-Secret Weapon: How iCloud Keeps Them One Step Ahead Ahead Of Windows
“Let me put it like this. The technology behind Megaupload and RapidShare may be similar, but this is also true for the technology of Microsoft’s SkyDrive or Apple’s iCloud, which is not too different from what RapidShare is. It’s uploading a file, and accessing it over the Internet, or even sharing at certain times with friends. The business from an ethical standpoint is really similar.”
Everything will change… again.
The introduction of Apple’s iCloud will create a tipping point that will have a profound impact on consumer software and services.
Like it or not, where Apple goes, everyone else eventually follows. It happened back in the 1980s when Apple introduced the first home computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). Before that, consumers had to use command lines to interact with their computers. But once Apple introduced the GUI, other computer makers soon followed suit.
It also happened with digital music. Sure, MP3s existed before iTunes. But the end-to-end system soon created a tipping point. And it happened with tablets. The hardware industry had been toying with tablets for over a decade before the iPad. But look at the avalanche of tablets that has since ensued.
