Microsoft CMO Says Rivalry With Apple Is a Thing of the Past
*By Alisha Haridasani*
The eternal rivalry between Microsoft and Apple may actually be over, said Microsoft’s chief marketing officer Chris Capossela.
“We’ve moved away from that competitive focus that I think we’ve had in the past,” said Capossela. “We need to bring our products on the platforms that our customers are using. So Office on the iPad or iPhone, Minecraft on every platform, that’s just a natural thing for us to do.”
In an interview Wednesday with Cheddar, Capossela said the traditional tech rivalries don't make much sense any more, and he cited the example of another competitor, Google, which uses Microsoft’s VS code developer tool. “The high tech industry is full of these paradoxes,” he said.
Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, and Microsoft's longtime leader Bill Gates had a love-hate relationship for years during which they sometimes helped each other while also trying to outdo the other. In 1994, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement, putting the two companies at loggerheads. Three years later, Gates stepped in to help save Apple from the brink of bankruptcy.
Caposella said that Microsoft's current CEO, Satya Nadella, has presided over a cultural shift that reflects a more self-aware approach, focusing on what Microsoft does for "our own fans," not obsessively trying to best Apple or others by competing for the same users.
The company differentiates itself from competitors by marketing itself as the company for professionals.
“Millennials tell us that when they think of ‘adulting,’ they think of Microsoft and we love that,” said Capossela. The approach has helped Miscrosoft grow after years of stagnation, he said.
Microsoft was scheduled to release its earnings report on Thursday, and Wall Street was expecting continued revenue growth driven mostly by software, including Office 365 and Azure.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/marketing-microsoft).
Umbilical cord blood banking platform Anja Health raised $4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Anja Health offers a personalized, doctor-backed cord blood bank, which lets new parents freeze stem cells from their child's umbilical cord so they can be used to treat diseases in the future. It's a process Anja has called 'Hollywood's best-kept secret,' as celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Serena Williams, and more have all banked their umbilical cord blood. Kathryn Cross, the founder of Anja Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you missed in today's news. Elon Musk has increased his commitment to purchase Twitter to $33.5 billion, Apple is raising its hourly wages for retail stores to compete for talent, and Roblox has announced that it will be partnering with the medically prescribed video game ‘Endeavor’ to help treat patients with ADHD.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: Brightseed Co-Founder breaks down what plant bioactives are, and how they're using the latest technology to study human's biological connections with plants; Esper Bionics CEO breaks down how they re creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Capturing A Black Hole In Our Milky Way.'
