A Tale of Two Companies - Successful, but starkly different

Think of the new, young, open, innovative kid off the block which is trying to change the way the world looks at internet; Scheming the death of all client-based applications; Aims to make everything right from Office Applications, Photo Editing, Mails, Storage Space (and any other thing that comes to your mind) available online.


Think of the other and you cannot, but smile at its resilience. Highly innovative, came up with radical new ideas and devices (think of GUI, laptop etc) that would have spelled glory - only to be snatched away at the most (in)opportune moment by another (then) rising company. It went through all the pains and all the lows that could ever hit a company to rise again from its own ashes coming up with new, sleek, hot devices that's flooding the world like a virus.


Can't think of a better way to describe these two rising behemoths. I can go on to write a book on these two sometime in the future.

Now, coming to why I sat down to write this post. These two companies are trying to redefine the way computing and communications will happen in the future, each charting its own path to glory (or doom?) that only time will tell. One is all about open source, simplification and the like while the other is about sleek, hip and modern.

I came across two articles today. One was about Gmail coming up with IMAP support to make it available on a client-based system like Thunderbird. (Turn Thunderbird into the Ultimate Gmail IMAP Client) Google is trying to make its applications more open to increase the user comfort. The other was about how people are defying the block imposed by Steve Jobs on Apple iPhone in a small shop in some remote corner of Mumbai. (Handbag seller takes on Steve Jobs) As Apple tries to apply brakes on the (so called) unauthorised 'opening' of iPhones, people become even more resilient in doing what they are not supposed to do.

An indication of how things will shape up in the future. It's time to wait and watch!