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He quoted Alan Kay during the iPhone launch to explain how Apple went about doing things: "If you really care about software, you should build your own hardware

• simonh 9y ago
  But note which he mentions first. In that phrase software clearly takes primacy. When NeXT was on the ropes they got out of hardware but kept making the software. Likewise when Apple was in trouble they opened up the hardware but kept the software close to their chest because that's where the value is. Why is this the case? Where is the value in the OS? Its all about the ecosystem. The OS is important because of all the applications that users can run on it. Word, Excel, Photoshop, InDesign, etc. The key advantage NeXT had over Beos was an ecosystem of applications - modest compared to the Mac but it existed, there was no OmniGroup for BeOS - and there was a robust set of developer tools and frameworks to build those apps on. PC hardware is a commodity. Anybody can build a computer from components in their bedroom. Building a new OS from scratch is a whole different ballgame. And no, rolling up a new Linux distro doesn't count.