They're wrong this time

The New York Times has an interesting story titled Gates vs. Jobs: The Rematch. It discusses the new battlefront between Apple and Microsoft, pitting Apple's fabulous iPod versus Microsoft's Windows Media Center, and the two companies' respective music stores. It's a classic battle of the platforms.

But I see a flaw in the article, and with too many pundits' assertions of the eventual outcome. Conventional wisdom posits that the overwhelming platform dominance of Windows , combined with the fact that their Windows Media Player software is being used by a number of MP3 player manufacturers, means that the devices will eventually become a commodity, and Microsoft will run Apple off the road. Again.

This time might be different, however.

For one thing, Microsoft won the PC wars because their operating system became the standard for business. But when you're talking about music instead of operating systems, you can toss out that equation. Then there is the fact that the iPod works equally well on both Macs and PCs. In fact, iPod sales to PC users are at least as strong as they are to Mac users, if not more so, rendering the classic anti-Mac arguments to worthlessness. Then there is the little issue that despite all the efforts by Microsoft and its army of collaborating businesses, that they have failed to even dent Apple's iPod market share.

It might be time to look at this in a new way.

Microsoft is betting that a PC will be the centerpiece of every living room, and that the PC will become your TV. Steve Jobs thinks the opposite way, and believes that the TV is well refined. Why would you have to log into your TV? And looking at the Microsoft Portable Media Player, why would anyone want to lug around a player too big to fit in your pocket, and too small to really see the action? I think Mr. Jobs is on to something.

At the end of the day, in the Microsoft world, everything revolves around defending the franchise of Windows. That might explain why Microsoft's forays into other markets, from Microsoft Bob, to Sidewalk, to Expedia, even MSN, have not been really profitable. It's not to say that Microsoft isn't a successful company; only a fool would claim otherwise. But when large corporations veer too far from what they're good at, it usually shows.

I'd love to fast-forward a year or two from now. Microsoft has the most formidable PR machine in business today. They can crush rivals merely with a press release announcement about vaporware. But sometimes, all their hype falls flat. And in this case, despite the assertions of the New York Times article, the outcome is hardly a sure thing for Bill Gates. For someone who has spent much of his adult life defying gravity in some respects, he might find that physics are inevitable.