把它歸結為微小差異的自戀。蘋果和微軟看起來比其他任何一家科技公司都更像。他們都是三十多歲的專註於軟體的公司，在全球多個市場都有影響力。兩者都生產大量硬體（儘管蘋果生產更多）。他們的兩位執行長都被一項不可能完成的工作困住了，那就是追隨創始人預言家們，他們透過傳統的個人電腦看到了個人電腦的未來。他們都沉迷於透過關註語言的細微變化來渲染這些願景中的細微差異。

因此，微軟營運長凱文·特納（kevinturner）今天在辭藻上的轉移，正如《邊緣》雜誌的湯姆·沃倫（tomwarren）早些時候報道的那樣，將微軟與蘋果（Apple）對決，“PC Plus”與“Post-PC”

特納的幻燈片題為“在我們看來，蘋果錯了！”，指出2010年喬布斯（Steve Jobs）和2012年庫克（Tim Cook）的話強調了平板電腦與傳統PC的區別，並宣佈iPad的推出開啟了“後PC時代”。特納隨後介紹了微軟最喜歡的短語“PC Plus”。事實上，喬布斯至少早在2007年就在討論iPhone和iPod時公開使用了“後PC”這個短語。與此同時，“PC Plus”更為古老；正如湯姆所說，1999年，比爾·蓋茨在《新聞週刊》的一篇專欄文章中一直在使用它，這與特納和微軟今天使用它的方式大致相同。

更重要的是，當你檢查它們時，“PC Plus”和“Post-PC”這兩個框架實際上是相同的。兩者都在描述一個日益增長的移動性和雲端儲存模糊了不同裝置上軟體和資料之間區別的世界。在開發策略和使用者介面上存在一些差異。但最主要的是，微軟的言辭強調創新從PC轉向Xbox或**，蘋果的言辭強調創新從iPhone和iPad等移動裝置“回到Mac”

不過，從結構上看，差別其實並沒有那麼大。這是兩家競爭激烈的公司不遺餘力地宣稱自己在不斷發展的個人電腦領域佔據主導地位，並宣佈：“我們在這裡負責。”

以下是蓋茨在1999年對即將到來的“PC+”前景所說的話：

For most people at home and at work, the PC will remain the primary computing tool; you'll still want a big screen and a keyboard to balance your investment portfolio, write a letter to Aunt Agnes, view complex Web pages, and you'll need plenty of local processing power for graphics, games and so on. But the PC will also work in tandem with other cool devices. You'll be able to share your data — files, schedule, calendar, e-mail, address book, etc. — across different machines; you won't have to think about it; it will be automatic. If you want to find the best price for a new car — and check out your budget to see if you can afford it — you'll be able to do that at the dealership, on the device you have with you. Wherever you are, whatever you want to do, you'll have all the information you need.

“我認為個人電腦將繼續。無論是平板電腦還是膝上型電腦，這種通用裝置都將繼續與我們同在，與我們一起變形。”

現在，這裡是史蒂夫·喬布斯在2007年說的話——碰巧，他坐在比爾·蓋茨旁邊（對面是AllThingsD的沃爾特·莫斯伯格和卡拉·斯威舍）——當喬布斯第一次開始公開談論“後PC”這個詞時：

I think the PC is going to continue. This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it's a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house or whatever it might be. So I think that'll be something that most people have, at least in this society. In others, maybe not, but certainly in this one.

But then there's an explosion that's starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them… There's just a category of devices that aren't as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functi***, whether they're phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we're going to see lots of them.

很明顯，喬布斯和蓋茨都沒有將“個人電腦”的概念侷限於任何一種作業系統或形式因素。雙方都強調，個人電腦將繼續發展和持久，由一個廣泛的，多功能的計算裝置擴充套件個人電腦的定義類包圍。

“我相信平板電腦的外形因素。”

2007年，喬布斯和蓋茨都非常非常看好平板電腦。令人驚訝的是，考慮到平板電腦的發展歷史。事實上，在那次聯合採訪中，有一個令人啼笑皆非的時刻，莫斯伯格指出平板電腦的外形因素“還不一定席捲全球。”蓋茨回答道：“我想這就像是Windows1992。也就是說，我對自己的“平板電腦”信仰毫無悔意，他認為平板電腦離主流接受度還有三年左右的時間。我懷疑蓋茨是否相信蘋果會成為2010年實現這一目標的公司。再說一次，1992年蘋果公司很少有人能完全意識到windows95會對個人電腦上GUI的主流接受和Mac的進一步邊緣化起到什麼作用。

不過，蓋茨準確地預測了他認為未來平板電腦的樣子，它幾乎等同於第三代iPad和執行Windows RT的微軟Surface（旁邊是智慧**、Xbox 360，以及我們從微軟研究中看到的一些東西）：

[In five years], I don't think you'll have one device. I think you'll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you'll do dramatically more reading off of that… I believe in the tablet form factor. I think you'll have voice. I think you'll have ink. You'll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that.

And then you'll have the device that fits in your pocket, which the whole notion of how much function should you combine in there, you know, there's navigation computers, there's media, there's phone. Technology is letting us put more things in there, but then again, you really want to tune it so people know what they expect. So there's quite a bit of experimentation in that pocket-size device. But I think those are natural form factors and that we'll have the evolution of the portable machine. And the evolution of the phone will both be extremely high volume, complementary — that is, if you own one, you're more likely to own the other…

[At] home, you'll have your living room, which is your 10-foot experience, and that's connected up to the Internet and there you'll have gaming and entertainment and there's a lot of experimentation in terms of what content looks like in that world. And then in your den, you'll have something a lot like you have at your desk at work. You know, the view is that every horizontal and vertical surface will have a projector so you can put information, you know, your desk can be a surface that you can sit and manipulate things.

因此，即使在這裡，蓋茨也不相信這些裝置中的任何一個都是其他所有裝置環繞的核心或樞紐。事實上，與喬布斯公開支援的膝上型電腦加智慧**計劃相比，他對個人電腦的設想更為激進。對喬布斯來說，“後PC”首先是一個裝置類別，一種描述“另一種形式的電腦”的新興類別的方式，轎跑車和轎車開始從卡車的世界中脫穎而出。

實際上，直到2011年你來到iCloud，喬布斯才開始用“後PC”來形容他在2007年描述的PC的演變：

About 10 years ago, we had one of our most important insights. We thought the PC would be the hub for your digital life. What did that mean? Where you put your photos, your video, your music. You were going to acquire it, and sync it to the Mac, and everything would work fine.

And it did, for the better part of ten years, but it's broken down in the last few years… Why? Because all your devices have changed. They now all have music; they now all have photos… and keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy!

We've got a great solution for this problem. We think this solution is our next big insight. We're going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device. Just like an iPhone, or an iPad, or an iPod Touch. We're going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.

這都是“後PC”的意思：從手動有線連線到裝置間的自動無線連線，同步、計算和通知都可以透過客戶端應用程式和後端服務之間的通訊來完成。這是PC對計算世界霸權的終結，而不是它的死亡和衰亡。這就是喬布斯的意思，也是蒂姆·庫克的意思。從根本上說，它的意思和比爾·蓋茨、史蒂夫·鮑爾默以及微軟的其他人所說的“PC Plus”完全一樣

現在，公平地說，這兩家公司確實存在真正的分歧，但主要是在可以說是後PC裝置的問題上，選擇的範圍正在迅速縮小。以下是其中的大部分：

• 微軟與一小部分硬體合作伙伴合作，在非常嚴格的標準下授權其智慧**作業系統。蘋果自己生產智慧**硬體。（在更廣闊的市場上，Android採取了一種更為寬鬆的方式，而RIM可能會走在蘋果和微軟之間。）
• 微軟和蘋果都設計了自己的平板電腦軟體和硬體，針對多點觸控介面和低功耗ARM系統晶片進行了最佳化。微軟也許可這個ARM版本的平板電腦軟體。
• 微軟和蘋果都認為，為支援物理鍵盤而構建的作業系統應該不同於那些以軟體鍵盤和語音控製為主要介面的作業系統。
• 微軟認為平板電腦上的鍵盤是必不可少的，而筆則非常酷。蘋果認為平板電腦鍵盤是一個不錯但不重要的選擇，而筆是蹩腳的。兩家公司都相應地定製了自己的平板電腦作業系統。
It's the end of the PC's hegemony over the computing universe, not its death and decay
• 微軟和蘋果都認為，在大多數情況下，較大的平板電腦比較小的平板電腦更好。（平板電腦市場上幾乎所有其他人的做法都不一樣。）
• 為了快速啟動移動開發，微軟將盡最大努力讓輕量級應用程式在**、平板電腦和重量級PC上都能執行；蘋果擁有足夠的移動應用程式開發人員，它真的不必擔心這一點，甚至可以吸引一批移動開發人員到它的桌面平臺上。

說真的，就這樣。

我們真的要假裝其中一家公司試圖將多個裝置連結到雲上是無可爭議的正確，而另一家則是無可救藥的錯誤嗎？

畢竟，亞馬遜、谷歌和facebook這些仍處於青春期的網路公司，幾乎和蘋果和微軟一樣相似。亞馬遜或谷歌的裝置變成了純粹的裝置，使用者資料、媒體消費和購買意向的通道。你使硬體和媒體盡可能便宜，並透過你能瞭解到的關於你的使用者和他們如何使用你的服務來彌補平衡。

這些公司越是瞭解到，將使用者留在他們控制的平臺上，他們就越會對傳統的PC合作伙伴的服務產生懷疑。

這就是今天最重要的區別：不是兄弟姐妹之間的競爭，而是世代之間的衝突。