Jobs: "We have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."
The phrase has proven to be spectacularly accurate, but it's important to parse the words correctly. They have proven that Apple can win on their own merits and not by fighting Microsoft for desktop supremacy.
In particular, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad are where Apple "won" by creating new markets, and not -- arguably -- by stealing market share from Windows Mobile and Tablet products.
Apple won, and Microsoft didn't have to lose.
So maybe Microsoft didn't have to lose, but they did, so I guess we'll never really know.
Sure, they lost their lock-in, but everything else is pretty much the same.
But not because Apple won anything. Nor would things be much different today, for Apple, if 99% of desktop PCs were still running IE. (If anything, problematic web standards would push more focus to the App Store.)
And Apple could and did do that; albeit their branded services weren't adopted very highly out of the gate as people had choices.
But the iPhone still could have happened.
Personally I respect Bill Gates a lot more. He basically spends all his time working on his charity nowadays; he really couldn't care less about the future of his company. Jobs is good for Apple, but I think Gates is better for the world.
i remember his talk at TED where he released mosquitoes in the audience. his goals are pretty clear, invite other people to care.
sorry, but it doesn't work like that if you keep it to yourself.
and i'm by no mean belittling buddhists or anything...
I also don't think you are in any position to be telling us why Bill Gates is giving his money away. Maybe he just wants to give it away because it makes him feel good. Every wednesday night my girlfriend spends 6 hours working with people with disabilities. When she comes home, she is beaming. Helping other people is the most rewarding of activites in its own right, try it some time.
Yes, it is.
Yup. Go read up what happened to Go Corporation. http://bit.ly/nsNkIY
"The lawsuit also claims that Microsoft stole Go technology, that the company threatened Intel, which had invested in Go, and that it used "incentives and threats" to coerce Compaq, Fujitsu, Toshiba and other computer makers not to use Go's operating system."
Many of the business practices Microsoft engaged in was illegal, so he illegally screwed over competitors. Not very ethical.
Also, for suicide statistics please google or use this friendly article (among many) - http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-and-dell-investigating-...
By generating such a comparison, you've distracted your audience from the content of your post which, by the way, I enjoyed and related to. Why poison an otherwise positive post by inviting flame wars?
Can we please stop the Steve Jobs and Apple suck-up here on HN please? This is getting as embarrassing to read as it is getting sickening.
I realize the Sanfran wannebe hipster-crowd here like their shiny iGadgets and want to reaffirm their own worth by appraising the company which they have attached their identity to, but this is getting a little bit out of hand and quite frankly, rather silly.
Granted, I had a bit of tone as well, but still.
I'll take your advice and just leave it at that. That and refrain from commenting on any Apple-related threads in the future. There's obviously no point trying to bring the real world into HN Apple threads.
You, and others here, who dislike the sentiment that something like the iPad could profoundly change someone's life, seem like you want to keep the magic of computation to yourselves. You denigrate design for humans as "marketing" and you demand to categorize the iPad as just another in a long line of Von Neumann machines.
It's not. And the Mission hipsters taking photos of their MacBooks with digital SLRs make me want to vomit. This is not about them.
It's about an old man who was cut off from computation--something I think is immensely valuable--and now has access to it.
Computation is important. Access to computation is important. You're right that talking about some new bullshit gadget as a religious miracle is embarrassing. I get that.
But you know what? Turing completeness is a miracle. Interactive computing is a religious miracle. The mouse is a religious miracle.
And this guy's dad being able to use a computer for the first time, after decades of being unable? Kind of a miracle in my book.
I'm sorry if that embarrasses you.
You have to read a lot into the post to come up with that interpretation.
If the father had been nearsighted but refused to wear glasses for many years, then saw his brother wearing a new style of frames and decided to finally get some himself, would we idolize the frame designer in this way?
Well... When you compare the achievements of both, Jobs' are bigger.
- he (with Woz) invented the personal computer as we know it (a plastic box with a keyboard)
- he made the GUI available to mere mortals (he was the driver behind the Mac when Apple was committing itself to Lisa)
- he made Unix easy to use (NeXT)
- he invented viable commercial music downloads
- he invented the desirable smartphone
- he invented a computer my mom would love to use
He is the driving force behind Apple's during its most fertile periods - I am quite sure nothing leaves the lab without his approval.
What did Gates really invent?
Look at what he said in his 60 Minutes interview: “My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person; they are done by a team of people.” He has always given credit to his team. I think it's the media that invented that myth.
he (with Woz) invented the personal computer
as we know it (a plastic box with a keyboard)
Before that Xerox Alto was introduced in 1973, and while never commercially produced -- get this, it had a GUI, a mouse, an object oriented OS and an Ethernet card.
And before that, the personal computers we know today were perfectly described in a book from 1949, called "Giant Brains, or Machines That Think", then later plans for building Simon were published: http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/berkeley/simonfaq.ht...
And between 1950 and 1977, the year Apple II came along, there were many other good products released.
he made the GUI available to mere mortals
So we are in disagreement.
he invented the desirable smartphone
What did Gates really invent?
> Before that Xerox Alto was introduced in 1973
How much did the IBM 5100 cost? The Alto wasn't even sold. Can they really be considered "the personal computer as we know it"? If we go that route, any desk-sized single-user mini-computer would be "the first PC". That's not the case.
> it had a GUI, a mouse, an object oriented OS and an Ethernet card
No, it hadn't (ethernet excepted). Smalltalk/80 (launched in, you guessed, 1980) was the first real product (one you could buy) and class-based OO was only introduced with Smalltalk/76. The Alto never went past R&D stage. Its descendants did (in the 80's).
> Making stuff available to mere mortals means making it a commodity.
No. It means making stuff with the right price/performance. Like I said before, the personal computer as we know it, did not exist before Woz added a keyboard and Jobs added a plastic case. Before the first Mac no ordinary person would be able to buy a GUI-capable computer. After it, every computer got a GUI (sometimes, grafted on top of a very rudimentary OS)
> If I could afford a cheap and usable personal computer (in my country in 1994), it's because of Microsoft, not Apple.
If you got your first computer in 1994, you already missed the most interesting part of the PC evolution. Bad for you - it was one hell of a party.
He was the driving force during Apple's best times, he does get credit from me for that. But to me, a small part of that is maybe Apple's board didn't find someone to properly replace him. Apple made a great deal of stupid choices between the eras of Steve Jobs. Now that he has resigned, it'll be interesting to see if Apple falls back to their usual "let's do something stupid since Steve isn't here!"
Ah yes, that failure Gates, I guess he'll have to go down in history as being one of the driving forces of one of the most successful companies in the history of the Earth. What a bummer.