I would generally agree with the overall thrust of the post, that successful products come from looking at the customer's problems first rather than what technologies you happen to have on hand to sell them. But the bit about how basic, non-product-oriented research is a distraction and a waste of effort leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Look at one of the cited examples:

> AT&T had Bell Labs, created Unix, and never made a successful product out of that work.

Which, sure, OK. But on the other hand, ask yourself where Apple (since we're talking about them here) would be today if Bell Labs had never existed. Bell Labs invented UNIX; no UNIX means no BSD, which means no NeXTSTEP, which means no OS X. Bell Labs invented C; no C means no Objective-C. Bell Labs invented the freaking transistor, without which the idea of a "personal computer" would have been utterly ridiculous. These are all fundamental inventions that made entire generations of tech businesses possible.

So one way to look at it is Gruber's way, that skipping out on R&D means that Apple is "focused." Another way to look at it would be that Apple is a freeloader. That they cheerfully take useful things that are only available to them due to the generosity of others to build products on, without seeing a need to ever be the generous ones themselves -- to replenish the commons that made their own fortune possible.

That's probably good business, at least in the near term. If there's a pile of gold sitting out in the town square, you'd be a fool not to grab as much of it as you could for yourself. But unless someone's throwing new gold onto that pile, eventually it's going to run out. And if you've used the gold to set yourself up as a goldsmith, that's going to be a pretty bleak day for you. You know?