Why Apple will never be the next Microsoft

[giza]

There's an article on Slashdot about some not so nice things that Apple is doing (proprietary hardware, the way they treated clone makers, etc.) and compared them to Microsoft. I happen to disagree, and I found that this comment pretty much agreed with me:

Steve Jobs is capable of being mean-spirited, cruel, self-centered, and the like. If Apple were to take 90% of the computer market, I have no doubt he would bully people around. That said, no, I don't think Apple ever could be the next Microsoft just because he is not Gates. Microsoft is the way it is because of Bill Gates. His thirst for total domination goes beyond most CEOs. He is not satisifed with 90% and will continue to crush competitors until he has it all.

Jobs, in contrast, is at his core someone who knows marketing and wants to dazzle his customers. With Microsoft it's what they want and you have to go along with it. With Apple, it's about finding the best customer experience and using that for profit.

Look at the quality of their respective products. What kind of quality do you get from Gates? Convoluted, buggy, but hey it's got features so shut up. What kind of quality do you get from Jobs? Look at Pixar. They are a money-making machine, but they do it by providing customers with top-notch quality. People are glad to give them their money. With Microsoft, it's often a case of grudgingly giving their money.

So a world dominated by Steve Jobs would undoubtably have it's own problems, it would be different problems than we have seen from Bill Gates. Their personalities are different enough to ensure that.

Feel free to discuss.

Comments

[orca-and-mommy.livejournal.com]

That's quite an accurate description of the situation. Steve Jobs does have people issues and would no doubt do something really/legally stupid if he were in Bill Gates position. It would only be a matter of time.

Back in the early 80's, if Apple kept to an open-systems and open-design philosophy, non-proprietary hardware, and treated the clone manufacturers better, the entire computing landscape would be quite different today, I suspect.

Now if you *combined* the two, that would be something spectacular! Alas, neither Jobs nor Gates can share anything. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they were in the same class as children. ;-) (Geeks beating up geeks probably.)

Orca _)\_

true... but...

[blaze-heartfire.livejournal.com]

First off let me say I love apple, seeing as I'm typing this from my new powerbook (oh god do I love apple...) However there are some trends seen within OS X that are beginning to present images of microsoft within apple.

Before I get to those I want to state my love of apple and everything they do. I've been a hard core PC user for ages, but somehow I got pissed, yadda yadda yadda lip service lip service I had to switch and did done. The system does seem to go around what the end user wants, and it works rather nicely, and constantly the system (being OS X) really does work around the user, which I do find incredibly nice. I mean hell, the task bar got rid of the safari application when it noticed that I was using firefox more often then the native apple web browser... what are the chances of that?

Pages is just a nice happy typing program, while weak.

I could go on about the nice things about apple but I do have to say there is something that has been changing...

Mainly Konfabulator, or however you spell that thing. OS X Tiger has something called Widgets or something like that, now anyone who has EVER used Konfabulator could say 'hey... that's konfabulator to the core...' yet apple is taking this software and putting it in Tiger and not giving any credit to the developers of konfabulator at all. Supposedly their being mean to their resellers that are not the Apple store, and so on and so forth. In those respects they seem mean, but I would not call them a microsoft. These are things the user wants, and quite frankly I rather go to the apple store then buy anything at another place at all.

Apple as a whole develops a very user oriented environment in which the end user feels comfortable. They accomplish this by implementing services and an environment in which someone can feel safe, comfortable and unthreatened. They do this in their operating system, right down to their stores. Look at their computers, they are incredibly user friendly. If you're a person who has no clue what a computer is, you get an imac, or an emac and plug in about two things and you're fine. If you crave power, get a G5, if you need portability, powerbook, cheap portability ibook. Some people practically scream in windows when they click the start menu and see how many options there are in the programs folder. In OS X it's just this cute lil bar of what you want, click it, and it's there. While I can't deny that some of the elements present within OS X are obviously stolen from Konfabulator you must realise it is in favor of the end user. In an attempt to end my now babbling Apple cannot be the next Microsoft, to do so would essentially make them, Not-Apple. Apple is created in a manner that results in them having total control of every little element of their system yes, but as a end user you really get something out of it. Microsoft gives this control up so they can just work on maximizing their profit and making the end user live in hell, and we see how well that has turned out in the past...

Apple is wonderful, and the manner in which they have engineered themselves today creates an internal system which will restrict themselves from ever being able to be compared truthfully to Microsoft.

Re: true... but...

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

As a slightly but not entirely tangential note, it's worth reading this article on "Daring Fireball" about Dashboard vs. Konfabulator, in which he lays out the case that Apple's product really isn't a ripoff of Konfabulator -- they do similar things, but (a) not in the same way and (b) neither is an original idea to start with.

http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator

Re: true... but...

[blaze-heartfire.livejournal.com]

hmmm... interesting read... even though I couldn't READ the thing after awhile because well... I guess he wasn't flat out explaining enough as to why widgets and gadgets are really different things.

From my perspective on the end product the two things seem rediculously similar, keep in mind that is the end product, not the code that is under it. Of course in that respect should someone prove that OS X Tiger/Apple is copying Konfabulator because the end product is the same then Microsoft could go out and kill Lindows, GNU, and Redhat for having a similar menu system (the start menu is nothing more but a pull down menu but it's on the bottom of the screen people! whee! ... I just realised that kind of) and Microsoft and Apple could be at eachother's throats over the alt tab/apple tab system... I have no clue who came up with it first so yeah =p

but thanks for the link, either way I still think the end result is the same (only one is so power hungry it's apparently funny). AND it taught me about apple tab :D hehe I love this thing *does apple tab* WHEE! tis pretty ^-^ I wonder if this means I can now alt tab out of WoW *crosses fingers*

But that being said, I still wonder. Can we consider that this implementation is still kind of stealing? Their end results are the same, however the processes and efficiency are dramatically different from one and other. Just because the code is dramatically different does that make them different even though they do the same thing?

... of course no matter what I think I answer my own question. That would say there can only be ONE word processor, ONE pulldown menu system, ONE alt tabbing/apple tabbing system, etc. etc. etc. etc.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

As my OS course professor once put it:

The goal of the operating system is to manage system resources, providing them to other programs so that they can complete their tasks. The primary measurement of how efficient an OS is is how quickly these these other program are able to complete. So looked at another way, an operating system is a program that doing everything within its power to get the point where its the only program still running on the computer. This view also explains Microsoft, which is merely attempting to apply this philosophy to the business world as well as to OS design.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that the only reason Apple is so innovative these days is because they HAVE to be, otherwise they wouldn't attract any customers.

If Apple had the insanely high market share that Microsoft has, they wouldn't have anywhere near as much the push to innovate; we would probably have a lot of the stagnation and "couldn't care less about the user" attitude that MS has now.

-Z

Ditto on this...

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

America loves its underdogs. While Microsoft continually gets lambasted over Windows ME, Bob, Windows Media, and DRM ... Apple got positive press over System 7, eWorld, iTunes, and DRM.

How Apple turned iShuffle's limitations into a positive marketing point is the perfect case and point. "We don't know WHAT it will play next" is a feature?

Microsoft actually does introduce innovations, but they're not as sexy as Apple's. And people tend to forget that Apple loves to change its mind every few years (Newton, anyone?), whereas Microsoft stuff often stays backward compatible for years. (I'm using pop-up blockers and tabbed-browsing tools introduced in Windows 95 Powertoys, for example.)

Apple software has bugs, but you're not allowed to talk about those. I suspect that if you let Microsoft dictate exactly how computers were to be made, down to every spec, the way Apple does, you'd see a lot less bugginess. But no one likes to talk about that.

Re: Ditto on this...

[giza.livejournal.com]

>How Apple turned iShuffle's limitations into a positive marketing point is
>the perfect case and point. "We don't know WHAT it will play next" is a
>feature?

They are up front about it. I'm not thrilled with that, so I won't be buying an iShuffle. :-)

>And people tend to forget that Apple loves to change its mind every few
>years (Newton, anyone?), whereas Microsoft stuff often stays backward
>compatible for years. (I'm using pop-up blockers and tabbed-browsing tools
>introduced in Windows 95 Powertoys, for example.)

Apple seems to be better about this now. Case in point, I have the CD of You Don't Know Jack Volume 1, made in 1994. I can (and have) run it on my Powerbook with the System 9 emulator.

>Apple software has bugs, but you're not allowed to talk about those.

I'm sure. But I'll take Apple's bugs over Microsoft's horrible security holes. I see things like Internet Explorer that time and time again have horrible security holes that you could drive a truck though. Don't even get me started on the 5 or so open TCP ports that a default install of XP has. In the day and age of broadband and script kiddies, I really have to wonder what Microsoft was thinking.

>I
>suspect that if you let Microsoft dictate exactly how computers were to be
>made, down to every spec, the way Apple does, you'd see a lot less
>bugginess. But no one likes to talk about that.

So far as random bluescreens and driver issues, I'm inclined to agree with that. I think that there are some third party companies that cut corners both on the hardware and drivers, and Windows gets unfairly blamed. But when it comes to bugs/security holes at the OS or Application layer, the hardware that it's running on doesn't make a difference.

I don't necessarily think Apple is great so much as I think that they suck less than Microsoft.

[gen-talon.livejournal.com]

My two cents. Very short.

Proprietary Vs. Non-Proprietary

uhm..yeah. I got nothing.

[firestormsix.livejournal.com]

I have two Three Windows machines and one Mac. Here are my simple likes and dislikes on both i use:
---My Mac works better for Graphics applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel Draw, and doesn't have so many virus vulnerabilities as the Windows Machines.

---My windows Machines have much more compatable software availiable and works better for Video, DVD & audio editing.
...so i use them both. :)