Not a zero sum game

Business is not necessary a zero sum game. Others do not have to lose for you to win, and vice versa.

The perfect example found in the article is the software industry. It's the perfect, yet probably the most unbelievable, with the two software giants, Microsoft and Apple, claiming that they don't need to beat each other out. What's with the PC-Mac guy ads and all the "you have no taste" talk that Apple had launched over the years. And what's with the "need to get into the next generation digital technology" in Zune that Microsoft launched?

Both Microsoft and Apple are the pioneers and probably the two most important entity who made computer what they are today: mass commercial products. With history of them being at each other's grits for decades, as well as their philanthropists, many would be surprised with the claim of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

However, when you look at the picture, you must really question yourself this: are the two companies really competing at all? Considering that they target totally different markets with different strategies.

Microsoft is the old plain Jane of the software world. Someone whom you won't notice at a prom. Someone who is so bland, yet you see them everywhere. Yes, Microsoft took the generic approach and made themselves a general appliance in every home. Exciting? Perhaps not. But easy to find. That's your plain Jane.

Apple is like the homecoming queen. A girl who always has everyone's attention, yet barely anyone can get her. That had always been Apple's approach starting froom their "1984 rebel-targetting commercial ads" to the iPods generation. Chic. Trendy. Beautiful. For the liberals of the world.

So how can the competition between the companies be a zero-sum game?

And now, the most ironic thing is this: Microsoft helped Apple in launching their Apple II computer, the innovation of the age, decades ago.

Who would ever think their partnership would go back so far?

Two of the luckiest guys on the planet