A casual chat with a friend the other day took me down a rabbit hole while rewinding back and reliving one of tech history’s most fascinating timelines. The story of how timing made all the difference between winning, losing, and completely missing the bus.

I still remember the smirk on Steve Ballmer’s face in 2007 when the iPhone launched. To him, it was just an expensive toy. A year later, Google entered with Android. And Microsoft? They were still busy somewhere else, only to turn up with Windows Phone in 2010 — three years late to a party where the dance floor was already full.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such a script. Back in 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh — revolutionary but pricey. Bill Gates spotted the gap, came in with Windows in 1985, and paired it with cheap IBM clones. Result? Windows ruled the PC world and nearly crushed Apple in the 90s.

Fast forward to the 2000s, and Steve Jobs repeated his own version of that play — starting with the iPod in 2001, owning the premium music device space, and then morphing it into the iPhone in 2007. Jobs’ brilliance was not just in the product; it was in seeing the inevitable convergence of phone + internet + entertainment before anyone else dared to bet big.

While Apple went after the premium market, the bottom of the pyramid was wide open. And here’s where Google showed killer instinct. They didn’t just copy Apple — they democratized the smartphone by making Android “free” for manufacturers. Suddenly, a web-enabled smartphone wasn’t a luxury; it was the cheaper alternative to owning a PC. Billions could now get online without ever buying a desktop.

Microsoft, in contrast, was still dealing with Vista headaches, chasing corporate server business, and nursing its Zune player. By the time they realized smartphones weren’t “just another niche gadget,” the app stores were already overflowing — for iOS and Android. Developers saw no reason to build for an OS with no users, and Windows Phone faded into irrelevance, officially bowing out in 2017.

Lesson? In business, being late is often worse than being wrong. Apple owned the top, Google owned the bottom, and Microsoft… well, they just owned the regret.