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Startups a Safer Bet Than Behemoths
Former Slashdot editor ScuttleMonkey raises his voice from the great beyond to say that "TechCrunch's Vivek Wadhwa has a great article that takes a look at difference between startups and 'established' tech companies and what they each mean to the economy and innovation in general. Wadhwa examines statistics surrounding job creation and innovation and while big companies may acquire startups and prove out the business model, the risk and true innovations seems to be living at the startup level almost exclusively. 'Now let's talk about innovation. Apple is the poster child for tech innovation; it releases one groundbreaking product after another. But let's get beyond Apple. I challenge you to name another tech company that innovates like Apple—with game-changing technologies like the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. Google certainly doesn't fit the bill—after its original search engine and ad platform, it hasn't invented anything earth shattering. Yes, Google did develop a nice email system and some mapping software, but these were incremental innovations. For that matter, what earth-shattering products have IBM, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, or Cisco produced in recent times? These companies constantly acquire startups and take advantage of their own size and distribution channels to scale up the innovations they have purchased.'"
These examples are dumb: iPod, late to the game mp3 player, didn't take off until they stopped their fixation for proprietary codecs.
What the HELL are you smoking? The iPod took off LONG before Apple abandoned DRM in iTunes. It took off a fair bit after Apple adopted AAC, and the iPod has always supported MP3...JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER PLAYER OUT THERE. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? What exactly is a "proprietary codec", as if that even makes a different in whatever point you're trying to make.
iTunes - appalling front end for a web-store and cruddy media management.
Subjective opinion is subjective.
iPhone, very late to smartphones, front end copied from N710 free media player.
Once again, pull the damned crack pipe out of your mouth, please. OMG, it has teh square icons! Ripoff!
App store a blatent ripoff of what linux users had a decade before and pay-apps in the infamous Lindows.
Uh huh. Steam did something similar. So have numerous others. It wasn't a huge innovation, but it was a damned good implementation on a mobile device. You're living proof of why willfully ignorant Linux fanboys are worse than the most ardent Apple yuppie fanboy.