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Steve Jobs made the biggest mistake in history?
- Thread starter aaquib
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Daring Fireball has a great piece on this topic:
The Art of the Parlay, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Platform Licensing and Market Share
The Art of the Parlay, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Platform Licensing and Market Share
Whether it was allowing Microsoft to license their operating system products to other vendors or the one-sided partnership they formed with Microsoft on the OS/2 Warp project, IBM did really screw up.
Personally, I think XEROX made the biggest mistake. They were the true innovators of the GUI, Ethernet and Postscript. They could have owned it all operating systems, networking and print publishing.
Good stuff MisterMe. I can remember how computers were introduced into education in the eighties and we identified them as either IBM, IBM Compatible, or Apple. IBM was clearly viewed as the dominant standard, People would say things like, "I have a Tandy computer, it's IBM compatible". I don't remember Windows even being a part of the normal computer lingo until the introduction of Windows 3.0 in the early nineties. All previous versions of windows were just seen as a cheap GUI's failing miserably to simulate Apple's look and feel. Most people I knew used MS-DOS and DOS was what they identified with when you talked about using a computer, unless you were an Apple person. Ah, the days of booting off of a 5.25 floppy disk were such fun.
To the OP, I wouldn't say that Jobs made a "huge mistake" as your friend has characterized it. Every company in the computer field has made choices about how they want to operate, who their target market is, and what products they will offer. Different people will judge the level of success of these companies in different ways. I don't think there is any one recognized criteria for success that is universally accepted in a field that so rapidly changes.
To the OP, I wouldn't say that Jobs made a "huge mistake" as your friend has characterized it. Every company in the computer field has made choices about how they want to operate, who their target market is, and what products they will offer. Different people will judge the level of success of these companies in different ways. I don't think there is any one recognized criteria for success that is universally accepted in a field that so rapidly changes.
Indeed. Most people have forgotten the reason why MS got so popular in the business arena mostly because the company that got them there no longer makes desktop hardware. Back in the 80's the mantra that most IT departments and companies (accounting namely) was that going with IBM (or its closest compatible clone) was a safe bet that nobody ever got in trouble with. IBM completely misunderstood the power of a good OS, gave MS the reins and left a loophole once people figured out how the clone the thing.
I truly believe that the backstabbing of IBM by Microsoft and their release of 3.0 gave MS the inspration to become a monopolist. They had huge momentum from IBM to rely on and they could safely leverage the consumer pc hardware market with ease and no danger to them. Once 3.1 came out, people largely bought into it becasue it was "good enough" That gave MS even more momentum.
In short. It had very little to do with Jobs or Apple. IBM gave MS too much power and MS discovered cloning. Cloning never worked for Apple because by the time they became available, Apple was already too invested into hardware and MS was allready too well entrenched.
I guess the obvious argument is that Jobs was not at Apple at the time. It was Sculley's fault for not releasing the Mac OS. Even Jobs will find it hard to fight against a company with 90%+ marketshare and a complete stranglehold on all PC OEM's. I say "will find", because that's exactly what I suspect he will do.
Which is precisely why the whole argument that Apple should license their software out like MS does fails utterly. Really? Aside from it hurting their hardware business, do you really think that MS is going to like Apple directly threatening their valuable and highly profitable OEM licensing business?
he idea that any company is going to abandon a competitive strategy like what they have to go head on with a convicted monopolist is insane.
The absolute stock price is meaningless without other information such as splits, market cap, etc.
"Cheap" as in "cheap and nasty", rather than necessarily "inexpensive".
Microsoft also have so many different versions of the same product that they create a confused mess.
Commodore went under due to utterly incompetent management. Apple nearly went the same way with a couple of complete idiots being put in charge, but Steve Jobs managed to bring it back from the edge. Imagine if he hadn't ... we'd all be stuck using Windoze!
You missed:
SCSI
3.5" Floppy disc
USB
Trackpad on laptops
and maybe even:
flat-panel displays
CD-ROM
pioneers in all, rather than the original inventors.
Back to the original question. Just what sort of Macintosh do you think you would have today if they'd had 20 years of pressure from the corporate world to produce cheaper and cheaper desktops / laptops ?
The biggest mistake in history, in my opinion, was man splitting the atom and creating a devastating weapon.
Apple Net Income Surges 47%, Beats Estimates, Guides Higher (AAPL) Posted on Mon. October 19, 2009; Posted: 04:41 PM
Revenues in the quarter rose 24.9% year-over-year to $9.87 billion, and came in ahead of consensus estimates of $9.20 billion.
Sounds like epic fail to me
Apple are a total solutions provider, Hardware & Software where as MS are just software, they don't control the hardware which is why Apple has a much better end user experience
Revenues in the quarter rose 24.9% year-over-year to $9.87 billion, and came in ahead of consensus estimates of $9.20 billion.
Sounds like epic fail to me
Apple are a total solutions provider, Hardware & Software where as MS are just software, they don't control the hardware which is why Apple has a much better end user experience
Microsoft is like Hyundai or Kia - they sell cheap garbage to the masses.
That's a rather sweeping statement. I have found our car to be reliable, economical and robust and very far from being garbage.
I find it funny how this is always viewed as "Jobs' mistake" by so many people. Microsoft had conned IBM into being used as a promotional tool, retaining the licensing fees for their OS whilst Big Blue naively ensured MS-DOS secured an enormous advantage in the business world.
It also needs to be remembered that by the time Macintosh production was ramping up and people were beginning to really see the GUI advantage Jobs himself had been fired from Apple. So Apple's mistake wasn't really Jobs' mistake.
Microsoft were unique in their day in that virtually every other player in the personal computer market weren't business savvy. They didn't really get how to leverage an advantage, but because the money was rolling in anyway nobody worried. Meanwhile Microsoft was already busy looking at how to secure markets and eliminate competitors. This is IMO the main reason why MS aren't successful in securing footholds in new areas anymore. Everyone else is older, wiser and capable of understanding the need for revenue streams. There's a level playing field on the business front, meaning it's all up to innovation.
It also needs to be remembered that by the time Macintosh production was ramping up and people were beginning to really see the GUI advantage Jobs himself had been fired from Apple. So Apple's mistake wasn't really Jobs' mistake.
Microsoft were unique in their day in that virtually every other player in the personal computer market weren't business savvy. They didn't really get how to leverage an advantage, but because the money was rolling in anyway nobody worried. Meanwhile Microsoft was already busy looking at how to secure markets and eliminate competitors. This is IMO the main reason why MS aren't successful in securing footholds in new areas anymore. Everyone else is older, wiser and capable of understanding the need for revenue streams. There's a level playing field on the business front, meaning it's all up to innovation.
It is a stretch to claim that everyone except Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were idiots. Too many people had too much good stuff for all of them to have been idiots.Commodore went under due to utterly incompetent management. Apple nearly went the same way with a couple of complete idiots being put in charge, but Steve Jobs managed to bring it back from the edge. Imagine if he hadn't ... we'd all be stuck using Windoze!I'd rather be shovelling out the elephant house at the zoo!
It is also overly dramatic to claim that without Steve Jobs's return to Apple, we would all be using Windows. Jobs returned to Apple with maturity that he lacked prior to his dismissal. However, Apple never lost two of the assets that it relies on today—a cadre of very talented and visionary employees and a throng of customers who are devoted to the company and its products.
Microsoft never had an original idea. Its founding product, Microsoft BASIC, was the result of a dumpster diving expedition at the Digital Equipment Corporation where Gates worked as a university student. Its most famous product, Microsoft Windows, got off the ground using Macintosh code licensed from Apple. Even Windows Media is based on stolen QuickTime code.
Without Jobs at Apple, Apple would be a very different company. It might even be a smaller company. However, we would not be slaves to Microsoft.
Other people have noticed that Microsoft licensing their OS to the computer manufacturers has played a massive role in it's dominance of the market. Apple had the option of either licensing their system to 'clone' manufacturers, or to keep it exclusively for their own hardware. Ultimately they ended up going along both paths - exclusivity for the early 1980's and the latter 1990's to today, but they licensed it for a large chunk of the early 1990's. And look what happened - Apple was on the brink of collapse during the latter Sculley/Spindler period. If anything, it was Sculley that made the mistakes that lead to the rapid decline in Apple's market share, long after Jobs had left and created NeXT. If Apple had chosen the route that was successful for Microsoft - to license their OS to other computer makers - then it's possible (and probable) that people will consider OS X to be as "clunky and glitchy" as Windows (yes, that is a subjective comment, but it seems to be a rather popular view). As has been noted, Apple has recovered amazingly since Steve's return, and Macs are gradually gaining back market share from Microsoft (the fact that last quarter was Apple's most profitable EVER says it all).
In short, I'm confused as to how Jobs is, apparently, to blame for what happened to Apple. The huge problems didn't start until well after he was out of the picture. Blame the lolly water maker.
In short, I'm confused as to how Jobs is, apparently, to blame for what happened to Apple. The huge problems didn't start until well after he was out of the picture. Blame the lolly water maker.
As well as popularizing, if not inventing:
DTP
laser printers
colour displays (although the colours on the original Macs were all displayed as shades of gray / pixel patterns)
FireWire
PDAs (even if they did kill off the Newton just as the market took to the idea)
digital camera
... the list goes on and on.
Hmmm ... let's see. Today we hava choice of Mac OS, Windows, and a few flavours of Linux. If Apple had gone under, then we would basically be stuck with Windows.
True, but the problem is that its the idiots in charge who ultimately decide what does and doesn't happen (they have to do something to "prove" they are worth such over-bloated salaries and bonuses!). You could have the most genius employee on the planet who makes the best device ever dreamed of, but if their manager says "no", then that device will never see the light of day (it will be the intellectual property of that company, unless the employee manages to buy back the rights.)
The Amiga is one such example, of many - it too was a great computer created by "talented and visionary employees" with "a throng of customers who are devoted to the company and its products" (and some still are), but it was stiffled by an inept management and the company went down the toilet.
Had those aspects ever been under Steve Job's control, Microsoft would have never became the OS market leader. Seriously, why would you willingly let another company beat you? Microsoft just so happened took a different approach than Apple by supplying their software to third party vendors instead of bundling them together, and that just so happens to be what the market wanted.