Looking at the evolution of computers in the 1980s, it would seem that one company would have come out as a dominate player. Whether it was Microsoft or Apple, what made computers what they are today is the fact that the world standardized on a platform and made a majority of software work on that standard platform. The fact that it was built on Windows instead of MacOS or UNIX was due to careful marketing, and nothing else. Had MacOS or UNIX been properly marketed and tuned to the user group that was exploding, they could have very well become the dominate platform of today. Look at Apple's marketing practices. They were DESIGNED to make apple become a dominate player. Restricting third party development and controlling the operating system puts Apple in a perfect position to become a dominate monopoly. It failed (for all the reasons Woz discusses in "How we failed at apple") but there's no reason to believe had it succeeded it wouldn't take a very dominate position in the software economy. In the 80's/eary 90's there was a gap that needed to be filled - a user friendly operating system. Windows filled that gap (whether it did a good job or not is not the debate) but reguardless of what filled the gap I think the chances that that platform would dominate were pretty high (and Apple and Microsoft knew this.)
Two questions for you (I've been dying to ask these for a while.)
First, in the Newsweek article "How we Failed at Apple" you said the following:
"The company's strategy was. Apple saw itself as a hardware company; in order to protect our hardware profits, we didn't license our operating system. We had the most beautiful operating system, but to get it you had to buy our hardware at twice the price."
Apple still today holds very very tight restrictions third party producers yet is succeeding - partially because prices for Apple systems is now much cheaper relative to market cost. In general though Apple as a company still behaves much the same as it did in 1984. Do you believe Apples continued restrictions on third party use of MacOS will spell trouble long term for Apple?
Secondly, when Microsoft was declared a monopoly a few months ago you had a posting to your website that included an analogy between car companies and Monopoly power. If I remember correctly the analogy basically came down to the idea of car companies owning the gasoline companies and requiring drivers to buy gas from only them - hence they could set the price on the gas.
This however is also a perfect analogy for how Apple behaves with respect to their hardware and software. If Apple had succeeded, today we would be in a world where we would have absolutly no choices in reguards to what hardware we purchaced (much like now we have little choice as to what operating system software is bundeled with our hardware.) If/when Apple becomes a very dominate player in the computer industry, how would you justify Apples continued control on hardware before the DOJ?
Slashdot Mirror
Looking at the evolution of computers in the 1980s, it would seem that one company would have come out as a dominate player. Whether it was Microsoft or Apple, what made computers what they are today is the fact that the world standardized on a platform and made a majority of software work on that standard platform. The fact that it was built on Windows instead of MacOS or UNIX was due to careful marketing, and nothing else. Had MacOS or UNIX been properly marketed and tuned to the user group that was exploding, they could have very well become the dominate platform of today. Look at Apple's marketing practices. They were DESIGNED to make apple become a dominate player. Restricting third party development and controlling the operating system puts Apple in a perfect position to become a dominate monopoly. It failed (for all the reasons Woz discusses in "How we failed at apple") but there's no reason to believe had it succeeded it wouldn't take a very dominate position in the software economy. In the 80's/eary 90's there was a gap that needed to be filled - a user friendly operating system. Windows filled that gap (whether it did a good job or not is not the debate) but reguardless of what filled the gap I think the chances that that platform would dominate were pretty high (and Apple and Microsoft knew this.)
Steve,
Two questions for you (I've been dying to ask these for a while.)
First, in the Newsweek article "How we Failed at Apple" you said the following:
"The company's strategy was. Apple saw itself as a hardware company; in order to protect our hardware profits, we didn't license our operating system. We had the most beautiful operating system, but to get it you had to buy our hardware at twice the price."
Apple still today holds very very tight restrictions third party producers yet is succeeding - partially because prices for Apple systems is now much cheaper relative to market cost. In general though Apple as a company still behaves much the same as it did in 1984. Do you believe Apples continued restrictions on third party use of MacOS will spell trouble long term for Apple?
Secondly, when Microsoft was declared a monopoly a few months ago you had a posting to your website that included an analogy between car companies and Monopoly power. If I remember correctly the analogy basically came down to the idea of car companies owning the gasoline companies and requiring drivers to buy gas from only them - hence they could set the price on the gas.
This however is also a perfect analogy for how Apple behaves with respect to their hardware and software. If Apple had succeeded, today we would be in a world where we would have absolutly no choices in reguards to what hardware we purchaced (much like now we have little choice as to what operating system software is bundeled with our hardware.) If/when Apple becomes a very dominate player in the computer industry, how would you justify Apples continued control on hardware before the DOJ?
Thanks!
j