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Apple Inc. is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing consumer electronic and related software products. Its best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of personal computers, the iPod (portable media player), and the iPhone. The software products include the Mac OS X operating system, iTunes media browser and the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The personal computer industry is characterized by the following features: it is highly competitive, computer companies abide aggressive pricing practices that causes downward pressure on gross margins, another feature is frequent introduction of new products, computers, peripherals and accessories have got in a great extant short product life cycles, there are a lot of industry standards and patents, in fact, all makers apply strategies of continual improvement in product price/performance characteristics, if any company has invented any technological advancements, another one rapidly adopts it, besides, prices are very sensitive on the part of consumers, and it is likely, there is and lots of competitors in the market.

Aug. 2, 2010 Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft, the software giant from Redmond, Wash., was born in 1975 as Micro-Soft, a partnership between two high school friends, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to write software for what they regarded as the first practical computer for the consumer market, the MITS Altair 8800. When that market exploded with the introduction of the I.B.M. personal computer in 1981, the main beneficiary turned out to be the now unhyphenated Microsoft, which had developed the software for the PC's operating system — and had held onto the rights to the program.

Microsoft is still a powerhouse supplier of the specialized software that meets the complex needs of large corporations, but it does not receive the adoring attention that its chief rival Apple draws with products like...