The conventional view of Microsoft is that it has lost its ability to innovate as a way to grow beyond its Windows franchise. Its search engine operations and mobile efforts have been failures. It moved into video consoles and lost billions of dollars. But Microsoft was stubborn, and the stubbornness yielded a success.
Sony is supposed to be the most poorly run large consumer electronics company in the world, its substantial edge lost long ago when it did not follow up the success of its Walkman. It has fumbled in the smartphone, camera and TV businesses. However, it has maintained impressiveness in the video game business, despite almost complete failures elsewhere.
All that needs to be said about Nintendo is that the company was so tiny before its Wii release that no one ever considered it a company that would grow to even modest size. Instead the Wii topped the industry in unit sales for years.
Critics can say that Apple should have gotten into the smart watch business long ago or pressed its brand in the television delivery sector. Its iOS has been a leader in operating systems and could have been leveraged in either business, as it was the favored operating system in the sector before the rise of Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android. But the smart watch business was uncharted territory. Apple’s lack of aggression in the living room will haunt it.
Only one business was ever large enough that Apple absolutely had to make an effort. The game console industry has produced hundreds of millions of unit sales over the year. And not one of those units was from Apple.
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