Popularity VS Profit

Hi guys,

I'm sure all of you have heard about the iPad or the iPhone. Much of the talk in the technology world is about these two items, which are both products of Apple Inc. Apparently, Apple has become the most popular and perhaps the most well-known computer + phone company in the world. It has sold over iPhone 3GSs since it came out last year, with over 4 billion apps downloaded from the apps store.

300,000 iPads just on the first day and 450,000 by the first week. So much so that the stores in America ran out of stock and they had to delay international shipping. Reviews of the iPad popped out all over the internet, media, newspapers and even Newsweek and China Weekly. There is so much buzz over the iPad and even the supposed iPhone 4G, which has yet to be even released! Evidently, Apple is receiving most of the attention in the tech world.

However, Microsoft has much of an "unsung success", according to Newsweek.Windows 7, Microsoft's new operating system, has sold over 90 million copies in just 5 months. The magazine said that windows 7 is "pretty high quality stuff" and has received "the highest customer-satisfaction scores of any product in its history". Its "revenues in the December quarter hit a record $19 billion", but "nobody seems to care". This is because Apple has captured almost all the computer/electronics market with its high-end Macbooks as well as its cheaper iPads and iPhones. For now, Microsoft is just raking in the money boringly, without receiving much attention.

So now for the question. Is popularity or profit better?

Firstly, I would like to say that both of them are inter-linked. If a company is popular, it will make a lot of money. However, if a company is profitable, it will most likely increase in popularity as its trustworthiness is high.

However, which one would you prefer to start off with? Personally, I prefer popularity. (No, its not because I love Apple more than Microsoft) With popularity, one can easily "convert" the people who are loyalist to your rival. Not to mention the free advertisements on newspapers and online tech blogs dedicated to your product reviews. Popularity will be a faster way to increase profits.

However, being profitable first is not so effective. If one is profitable but not publicized, your customer numbers will never increase as all the customers would be people who already trust your products, without many new customers. In fact, if you rival manages to create much better publicity, your customers would be poached. This is the case for Microsoft. They do not publicize their products much, so most of their customers are the same old ones from before. However, Apple publicizes their products a lot, and more and more people are converting to using Macs rather than PCs, iPhone rather than Windows Mobile, iPads rather than netbooks.

What is you take on this? Please Comment.