3 ms·

I think you may be too young to remember what Microsoft was like in the 1980s, but this isn't true. The companies had very different personalities. Apple was

by pg 18y ago

I think you may be too young to remember what Microsoft was like in the 1980s, but this isn't true. The companies had very different personalities. Apple was always about making great things, whereas Microsoft's path was to ruthlessly exploit the monopoly that IBM dropped in their lap. That path made Microsoft more successful in the short term (particularly after Jobs was exiled) but in the long term making good things seems to be the winning strategy.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Do you really think that Apple wouldn't have ruthlessly exploited the monopoly if they had come about it? Their actions with iPod/iPhone make me think they would have. Jobs is just as much the ruthless dictator as Gates. In fact from what I've read/heard from people that know them, they seem to share a lot of the same personality traits.
- pg 18y ago
  Not as ruthlessly, I don't think. Not because Jobs is a nicer guy than Gates, but because he has taste. He could not bring himself to ship a crappy product. And so wherever shipping something great didn't coincide with exploiting the monopoly, he would not have been able to go so far down the latter vector. Also, shipping great stuff requires you to have great hackers to build it, and great hackers have principles. They limit how evil a company can be. You can see this most clearly at Google. If they tried to do anything too evil, they'd face an internal rebellion. Apple employees seem a bit more intimidated by Jobs, but they are pretty idealistic too. A lot would quit if Apple went too far, and Jobs is smart enough about people to know that.
  - davidw 18y ago
    I'm not particularly convinced of Apple's good will. Speaking of the 80ies, Apple is the one that wanted to control both the OS and the hardware (still true today, from phones to computers), and Apple is the one that sued MS over 'look & feel' issues.
    - pg 18y ago
      Back in the 80s it would have seemed bizarre to do otherwise. You used whatever OS the manufacturer supplied. It was part of the computer. That was as true with Microsoft OSes. Apple choosing to make their own OSes instead of buy them from an outsider supplier was in those days no different from e.g. building displays or keyboards rather than buying them from suppliers.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    You mean "great" from a design/usability perspective. Gates shipped products that were great in terms of fitting market need and expanding the utility of Windows. IE may have sucked to use, but it sure beat the hell out of paying for Netscape.
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    "He could not bring himself to ship a crappy product." Interesting to see this quote from Jobs during today's Apple earnings call: "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there's a lot of them." Almost like he knew we were having this conversation. :)

by pg 18y ago

mattmaroon 18y ago

Do you really think that Apple wouldn't have ruthlessly exploited the monopoly if they had come about it? Their actions with iPod/iPhone make me think they would have. Jobs is just as much the ruthless dictator as Gates. In fact from what I've read/heard from people that know them, they seem to share a lot of the same personality traits.

pg 18y ago
Not as ruthlessly, I don't think. Not because Jobs is a nicer guy than Gates, but because he has taste. He could not bring himself to ship a crappy product. And so wherever shipping something great didn't coincide with exploiting the monopoly, he would not have been able to go so far down the latter vector. Also, shipping great stuff requires you to have great hackers to build it, and great hackers have principles. They limit how evil a company can be. You can see this most clearly at Google. If they tried to do anything too evil, they'd face an internal rebellion. Apple employees seem a bit more intimidated by Jobs, but they are pretty idealistic too. A lot would quit if Apple went too far, and Jobs is smart enough about people to know that.
- davidw 18y ago
  I'm not particularly convinced of Apple's good will. Speaking of the 80ies, Apple is the one that wanted to control both the OS and the hardware (still true today, from phones to computers), and Apple is the one that sued MS over 'look & feel' issues.
  - pg 18y ago
    Back in the 80s it would have seemed bizarre to do otherwise. You used whatever OS the manufacturer supplied. It was part of the computer. That was as true with Microsoft OSes. Apple choosing to make their own OSes instead of buy them from an outsider supplier was in those days no different from e.g. building displays or keyboards rather than buying them from suppliers.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  You mean "great" from a design/usability perspective. Gates shipped products that were great in terms of fitting market need and expanding the utility of Windows. IE may have sucked to use, but it sure beat the hell out of paying for Netscape.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "He could not bring himself to ship a crappy product." Interesting to see this quote from Jobs during today's Apple earnings call: "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there's a lot of them." Almost like he knew we were having this conversation. :)