For years, Microsoft was regarded as the elephant in the computer room.  It was big, it was boring, and it was impossible to go one conversation without begrudgingly mentioning the computer behemoth.  But now, with the meteoric rise of Apple, things look a little different – and possibly more favorable, for the world’s largest software company and its decisive push into hardware.
For nearly ten years, Apple has had a lock on hardware, creating gorgeous aluminum-and-round-edged devices that impressed techies and average users alike. Apple excelled at crafting dependable software that worked with – and only with – their devices.  And in quick succession, Cupertino pushed out the iPod, iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad – each one not so much inventing a field as re-imagining it, tying it into Apple’s expanding, if heavily curated, ecosystem of music, TV, movies and apps.