Product Strategy

Industry competition requires your company to constantly present new and better products and services (positions, variations, puzzles, problems) to keep up with changes in consumer demand. Microsoft and Apple (Houdini and Rybka), both creators of computer operating systems, have been waging a tactical battle for consumer preferences ever since both companies came into existence. Microsoft's tactic was to be a software manufacturer and make its operating system available to computer manufacturers for use in their personal computer products, then sell the owners of PCs software to run on that operating system. Apple's tactic was to keep its operating system proprietary and manufacture its own brand of computers. Both companies have achieved their strategic goals of growing to become leaders in the Internet and computing industry but there are significant differences in their product strategies and tactics.