Apple's Spat With Google Is Getting Personal

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> Date: March 14, 2010 4:36:34 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Subject: Re: [IP] Apple's Spat With Google Is Getting Personal

> > ...
> > Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should  
> > have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers  
> > should take advantage of services on those gadgets with  
> > applications downloaded from Apple's own App Store.
> >
> > Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open,  
> > nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps  
> > that work on many devices.
> > ...
>
> This is classic Steve Jobs.  He and I discussed EXACTLY this same  
> issue - or obsession - one evening in my kitchen, long ago.
>
> (We knew each other before he and Woz created Apple, and on into the  
> mid-'80s.  E.g., when I started the landmark 1st West Coast Computer  
> Faire, Steve was one of the first potential exhibitors I called.  I  
> could and did trust a mere verbal "handshake" with him over the  
> phone, renting premium front-entrance exhibit space to him.)
>
> Our kitchen debate was most of a decade later, in the mid-'80s,  
> after Apple had introduced the Mac as an entirely closed platform -  
> only allowing Apple hardware as well as its closed operating system  
> - and before then-CEO John Scully forced Steve to leave Apple (for a  
> while, during which he created NeXT).
>
> I asked Steve why he didn't open the Mac hardware to 3rd-party add- 
> ons - pointing out that every microcomputer company that had  
> insisted on closed hardware had failed, whereas every one that was  
> successful had opened their hardware to 3rd-party enhancements.  
> Notably, this included IBM with its PC's, a huge reversal of IBM's  
> traditional practices.
>
> Steve's said he didn't want to create a market for any competitors.
>
> I said the market was too big - that it simply wasn't possible for  
> him to provide all the options that his potential customers wanted -  
> that by insisting on proprietary hardware, he was loosing large  
> numbers of customers who needed add-ons that Apple couldn't or  
> wouldn't provide.
>
> We haggled a while, and eventually agreed that we disagreed.  <grin>
>
>
> Well - history proved that I was right, and Steve was wrong.  After  
> Jobs left Apple, it opened Mac hardware to 3rd-party add-ons and Mac  
> sales and market penetration exploded.  (And I got my first Mac, was  
> instantly enchanted and got a second, top-end Mac the next day, and  
> have been a Mac zealot ever since.)
>
>
> Steve's obsession with control and monopoly was wrong then, and it's  
> wrong now.    It's wrong for the public, and it WILL prove to be  
> wrong for Apple.
>
> Again!
>
> --jim; Jim Warren, open-govt & tech-civlib advocate & sometime  
> columnist
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Warren
>  justjim36 on twitter  |  Jim Warren on Facebook



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