Case study Microsoft Microsoft responds to competitors and rivals by creating and revolutionizing new applications and services so that its users can perform at their best. The case study talks about multiple instances where Microsoft was faced with a rival or competitor that posed a threat and Microsoft was still able to gain an advantage. Apple released the Macintosh, and Microsoft quickly responded with Windows 1.0, believing it to be a superior operating system. At first Lotus controlled the dominance, but Microsoft managed to conquer them by offering a superior, easier to use and bundled product to beat them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Microsoft often offers bundles, such as combining Microsoft: Word, PowerPoint, Art, and Excel, and deals to get an edge over competitors, such as window bundling with Internet Explorer. At its peak, Microsoft had a 95% market share, but then was hit by an antitrust case that limited it to its bundling deals in the future. After the antitrust case, Microsoft adopted a cost leadership strategy by trying to lower costs and sell at a lower price. They then beat Linux by offering smaller bundles and lower costs, which made it difficult for Linux to gain a foothold in the industry and then was quickly left by the wayside. They face other challenges from Java, WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3, but have managed to maintain large market share by staying true to their ideals of superior products at a lower cost. Throughout their history Microsoft has been able to rely on their ability to create a superior product at a low cost to beat any competitor. Google was able to create a competitive advantage by being first in the industry. He was an innovator in the research industry and had extraordinary success with his unique product. Google was able to gain a monopoly early on with its own product and high barriers to entry. Google also used cost-per-click advertising, which meant that advertisers paid for advertising only when the user clicked on the ad. This cost-per-click advertising strategy allowed advertisers to get immediate feedback because people were simply clicking on our ads. or not and it was shown in their entries for each ad. This feedback was very helpful to advertisers and made even more advertisers want to join Google's new strategy. This created their economic value. This created economic value for Google and allowed Google to move to a customer-focused approach and therefore gave them an even greater competitive advantage, allowing them to grow and hold 63.5% of the search engine market shares of research by November 2008 (figure 3). In 2015, Google received over $17 billion in revenue from advertising alone, a 12% increase from the previous year and part of steady growth every year. Being first in the industry, innovating and offering the best customer experience has helped them have over 400,000 advertisers, more than Yahoo and Microsoft. In November 2008 Microsoft held only 8.3% of the market share (figure 3) and this was due, as the Microsoft team called it, to a “vicious cycle”. While Microsoft was third in search, which would normally represent a decent market share, it still wasn't enough to come close to competing with Google. One way to put this in perspective is that Coca Cola has a 48% market share compared to Google. PepsiCoit's 21%. Even though the difference between them is only 27%, Coca-Cola is still the main supplier of soft drinks for 25 of the top 35 fast food chains. The difference in Coca-Cola's revenue compared to PepsiCo's last year from soft drinks alone was more than $19 billion. Google had a market share of 3.5%, almost half of Coca-Cola's share. The difference between Microsoft and Google's market shares was 55.2%, yet Microsoft was still trying to manage and compete in that industry. Coca Cola vs PepsiThis example is just one real-world example of how every small difference in market share impacts the industry by millions of dollars. Google had a huge competitive advantage and market share over its competitors Yahoo and Microsoft. Microsoft is well known for being an innovator and offering great products and pricing, and has continued the trend in search and search-related advertising. They couldn't leave such a mature market open. As Google focused on cost-per-click advertising and gained more and more market share that soon became Microsoft's competitors, Microsoft realized that the time had come to create economic value. The search industry had a lot of unknowns around it and didn't seem attractive to many consumers or businesses at first. Microsoft had been the dominant power in the computer and software industry, but once Google started gaining market share and power, Microsoft went on the defensive. A company like Microsoft that has been in power since 1975; and has outperformed past competitors by relying on what it does best, creating great products at a lower price than its competitors. They weren't going to let Google change that. Microsoft's strategy involved fighting Google's cost-per-click advertising with search and search-related advertising, but it couldn't even attack departments it wasn't fully familiar with with the danger of spreading to allow others competitors to come in and take control from under their control. huge domain. They continued to create new products at a lower price than other competitors and tried to maintain the Internet browser market that they controlled dominantly, but soon Google came out with Google Chrome and since then it has been a battle with the favor that it has slowly moved to Google Chrome over the last few years. Their defensive strategy kept competitors at bay in many areas, but some were too competitive to control. Although their strategy was defensive and tried not to allow Google to gain much of the market share and expand into other departments, unfortunately it did not work and they allowed Google to enter the Internet browser department and allowed them to take foot with their Google Chrome Internet browser. Microsoft should continue what it has always done, but with a slightly greater strategy of product differentiation. In the past, Microsoft has beaten its competitors by offering a better product at a lower price and should continue to do so but with a few more markets. Microsoft is renowned for its packages like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Art, but one thing it has yet to take full advantage of is the cloud. Apple has already moved to cloud computing so it can offer its customers constant updates, and bug fixes have kept customers satisfied longer. In a recent article in Forbes magazine we talk about how Apple is able to process the shipment of updates in weeks instead of months and how projects that usually take years can be completed in months thanks to .