Well... GM is on the verge of bankruptcy and Microsoft is controlling 90% of the market.
"The Big 3" -- GM, Ford, Chrysler -- are all in trouble today (particularly GM), but it was still relatively recently (1970s) that they held over 80% of our domestic market. And since an automobile has a longer lifespan than a PC, their industry shifts will naturally occur much more slowly.
Obviously the "everything for everyone" factor wasn't the problem.
Sure, it wasn't the only thing to blame. However, it was the factor that did undoubtedly lead to incredible cannibalization, incest and resource-shifting that lead to the company working more against itself than its external competitors.
GM's downfall was that they went on a multi-decade shopping spree and collected brands from all over the world like trophies, then they diluted the value of all those brands by thinking you can just slap a Chevrolet badge on a Daewoo or a Saab badge on a Subaru without anyone noticing.
The Big Three had been doing this buying-up for decades and decades before their decline: there's dozens of "Dead Brands" in their coffers (Willys, Nash, Kaiser, Packard, Studebaker), as well as "Live Brands from Dead Companies" (Lincoln, Olds, etc) too.
The auto industry as a whole has a problem IMO with being inwardly focused and its not just GM or the Big Three who do it: so why don't we see the same brand management problems today with Fiat, Porsche, Nissan, Toyota, etc, etc, etc?
And to put this in parallel, its not that MS hasn't bought up tons of other companies and tried to absorb them, either.
... Since brand loyalty is kind of a cornerstone in the car business, and GM displayed zero loyalty toward their own brands, the customers did the same. Say what you will about Microsoft but I don't think you can accuse them of not staying true to their brand...
Really? Can you really articulate what Microsoft's "Brand" is?
As per these 'Hunter' commercials, it would seem that the MS brand message is:
"We are the invisible commodity that you take for granted"
Optionally with the ending:
"...because we're CHEAP"
And I'll bet you that their 4th commercial won't change this message.
EDIT: and we don't see much consumer loyalty between PC brands: Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc ... essentially because of that 'take us for granted' piece from MS makes them all into mere hardware commodities, where brand loyalty is at its weakest.
Well, Microsoft isn't going bankrupt anytime soon...
People used to think the same of companies like GM, too.
Then in 1973, we had the first fuel crisis shock. That's going to be the event that IMO future historians will say was the 'beginning of the end' for GM. The thirty years since has been a combination of inertia (partly due to size), transience (allowed them to try to ignore market forces) and the more durable nature of the product (average car is 8 years old, which means that there's a 16 year old one still in service for every new one), which all serve to increase the reference timeframe.
-hh
