Apple’s confusing product portfolio makes Microsoft look sleek
Steve Jobs built Apple’s brand on simple design and a sparing product line-up, but now its portfolio is a mess of wires and product variants that make Microsoft look like the cooler brand.
By Mark Ritson
I’ve always liked those ads that show grey-haired executives whizzing around the planet.
You know the ones. They are shaking hands with a client in Japan; sitting in the back of a car in Frankfurt, looking at the streetlights; striding through the airport somewhere in the US with a purposeful look on their tanned face; and then landing back home to be met by their loving spouse and two kids, who charge across the arrivals hall to squeeze their long-lost champion.
It’s all cock of course. The ads that are meant to target this crumpled army of corporate travelers are a massive joke.
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We just don’t look like that. To travel internationally means to be grey. You wake in hotel rooms and pause while clarity slowly emerges from the dark.
‘Where am I?’ your brain asks, and you stare up at the ceiling and wait – wait for the jet lag and weariness to part, and for your location and reason for being there to become apparent. As you age it can take several minutes.
To properly business-travel is to be tired in your bones. Foreign hangovers, 4am wake-up calls and the eroding effect of air travel take their toll.
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