# Apple Vs. MSFT: Building Consumer Products

**Published by:** [Continuations](https://continuations.com/)
**Published on:** 2008-03-08
**Categories:** apple, msft, consumer
**URL:** https://continuations.com/apple-vs-msft-building-consumer-products

## Content

bijan:-Data transfer. Since I just went through a data migration just a few weeks ago, I was lazy and thought I’d roll the dice and try Apple’s Migration Assistant. Appls, data, everything. Guess what? It just worked. The only thing that didn’t work was the printer drivers for my office but that was easy enoughQuite the contrast with my experience setting up Vista this morning on my mother-in-law’s brand new HP. Just to get everything set up was a 2.5 hour process not including any data transfer from an old machine. Just activating and updating antivirus took almost half an hour between sorting through the various security warnings between Vista, Norton (pre-installed) and some extra HP custom piece of software. All of this begs an important question. Is it possible to build a great consumer product when you don’t control the experience? I am increasingly believing that the answer is NO. Jobs’s unwillingness to liberate the OS from the hardware was the downfall of Apple the first time round, but now it may well be its biggest asset.

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