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By this standard, who is innovative? Wasn't the Macintosh a reaction to the work at Xerox PARC? Wasn't the iPod a reaction to the existing MP3 players on the

• revscat 12y ago
  In some ways, yes. But, in the case of the Macintosh, Apple took what was available and made it successful in the consumer space. They helped to usher in a new market. The same can be said of the iPod, although not to as dramatic an extent as with the 512K Mac. For Google, their innovation was AdSense. You could say that this "innovation" was just a natural evolution of the banner ads of the era, but only in hindsight. Contrast both Google and Apple with Microsoft and you will be hard pressed to find a time when Microsoft had the foresight to see where the market is going, or what the potential is. They react to established players, embrace & extend, and (occasionally) profit. They have never been able to successfully create new markets.