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Their paths diverged in the late 1980s. Gates was well on his way to building one of the most lucrative and tightly controlled monopolies in the history of modern capitalism. Jobs was being ignominiously tossed out of the company he had founded. Jobs' eccentricities (from his control-freak tendencies to his erratic management style) had converged to make him professionally unpalatable. The ill-fated Next, with its revenge-driven strategy, further confirmed that Jobs was a nonfactor--a has-been from the bygone years of home-brewed whimsicality, stuck in an era of corporate, enterprise-focused technology.
My thought at the time: "Good riddance." Forrester's focus on how $1 billion-plus companies use technology enabled me to write off Next and Apple Computer as diversions, insignificant to the enterprise business that we analyzed every day.
It was the mid-1990s. Apple was disappearing. Steve Jobs was irrelevant. And few noncult members wept.
Roll the tape. The original dream of using digital technology to change the way we live our lives is being fulfilled not by Microsoft and Bill Gates but by...Steve Jobs. He has revolutionized the film industry with Pixar. He is the prime mover in the transformation of the music industry. The most successful portable music player by far was his idea. The iLife software suite is an amazing set of integrated applications for controlling music, arranging and storing photos, capturing and editing videos, and making movies. GarageBand, Apple's newest software for recording, editing, and arranging music, is drawing a fresh new generation to Apple. Steve Jobs is "The Digitizer."
Steve Jobs is delivering on the digital dream.
When Jobs arrived back at Apple, he said, "Screw the software business--let's build our own great applications!" This old computer business stratagem, dating back to the minicomputer industry, yielded the ease and elegance of one computer, one architecture, one software set--openness and interoperability be damned. Without standards and third parties to worry about, you can tune your software for maximum integration and seamlessness--no bulky APIs (application program interfaces) or open drivers to file, rub and sand the cool edges off your systems. And if the software is good enough, consumers have to buy your computers to run it.
It's not open, and it's not industry standard or industry certified. It's just better.
Jobs is delivering on the digital dream. While other companies in the tech industry are either stumbling (Sony), services-focused (IBM), protecting their monopolies (Intel), or shepherding their legacy systems (Microsoft), Jobs is delivering inspired, compelling digital alternatives to the old analog world. The guy has the creativity of Sergei Brin and Larry Page at Google, the experience of Michael Dell, and the connections and persuasiveness of Carly Fiorina.
What it means No. 1: To the enterprise world? Nothing. Jobs is digitizing the consumer world. This isn't about helping large companies clear checks, run supply chains, or manage inventory. Jobs has never understood the use of computing in large companies. The minute he or Apple mentions "enterprise," run in the other direction.
Jobs has never understood the use of computing in large companies. The minute he or Apple mentions "enterprise," run in the other direction.
What it means No. 3: Watch for Apple to take its music strategy (elegant integration of the personal device, desktop management software, and online music store) into new spaces. Still cameras and video cameras would be obvious markets to attack. Making mobile phones easier to use and highly integrated with the desktop could be a big win for Apple. iSync with Bluetooth would finally make it dead simple to switch phones without trashing address books.
What it means No. 4: Linux plus Apple? Somehow, you know that Jobs won't be able to resist this one. If Jobs and team point their considerable innovation and creativity back toward desktop applications, they could blow a lot of new thinking into the market. Call it "iWorks"--an integrated desktop suite based on Linux. Apple would feature iWorks first on the Mac and then make it available on Intel machines. This would mean that 5 percent of desktops would have Linux desktops right out of the chute--a great start for the first serious Linux-based Microsoft Office fighter. This one's a stretch, given that Mac is based on OpenBSD, not Linux. But if the opportunity becomes compelling, I'll bet Jobs will move.
There aren't many return engagements in the technology business--just ask Phillipe Kahn, Fred Wang, Steve Case and Edson DeCastro. That makes Jobs' ever-evolving digitization crusade such an amazing odyssey.
Biography
George Colony is chairman and chief executive officer of Forrester Research.
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tune your software for maximum integration and
seamlessness--no bulky APIs (application program interfaces) or
open drivers to file, rub and sand the cool edges off your
systems."
It is statements like this that make CNET a joke in the Mac
community. In fact a huge reason for the Mac's resurgence
(aside from Steve Jobs), is the fact that Apple has embraced
standards at every level of the platform. This can be seen at the
base levels of the operating system (BSD, PDF, XML) to the
foundations of the digital hub (MPEG, JPEG, Rendezvous).
Plus, with Cocoa, Apple has one of the most sophisticated API's
on the market. Not to mention the fact that OS X's support of
industry-wide development tools (C, Perl, PHP, Apache, & Java)
has made the Mac a dream platform for developers. Third-party
developers are thriving on the Macintosh today.
Apple does have the luxury of building the "whole widget" as
Jobs likes to say. This vertical integration has indeed produced
impressive results in the digital-hub apps, but this in no way
implies Apple ignores standards. In fact an informed analyst
would realize it is just the opposite.
Mac. Word and Excel started out there. Pagemaker, Photoshop
and the Laserwriter opened new doors.
Only Mac software manuals need start with, "if you don't read
anything else, read this." What followes is brief. I had the
opportunity to use a Mac and a dos machine side by side. I
chose the Mac and have never regretted it.
What was not available was the junk on the shelves at Best Buy.
Games and software tchotchkes.
I would say it's a stretch, since Linux is a tiny little piece of an Operating System and has nothing to do with an "integrated desktop suite". There are already several 'Open' application suites that are available for Linux on x86 & PPC platforms. Some of these have been compiled to work on OS X under the X11 subsystem. The reason it is not likely to go the other way is simple, Apple doesn't write X11 apps and is unlikely to port the Aqua/Quartz interface & video subsystem to other platforms. It may be possible for them to do something similar to what they provided with iTunes for Windows, but it seems unlikely given that the only reason they expended that effort with iTunes was to better support the Music Store & the iPod. Porting applications to Linux is in no way a profitable exercise. People that use Linux on the desktop generally want their applications to be free, and those in the enterprise have little need for 'Office' applications on their web and file servers.
cares about an overpriced Mp3 player?
If they lowered their hardware prices and stick with their OS
they would have more marketshare. Steve Jobs doesn't get
it, and probably won't.
OS X runs circles around WinXP, Linux or any other OS. But
Apple is too busy trying to convince everyone that Itunes is
the solution to the world of piracy.
The digital hub has been here and is done. Wake up Steve!
Lower prices, speed up the CPUs and make your products
affordable.
Then Apple might get more then Linux's share of the
market.
The Linux kernel is breaking new ground with its module-based variation of a monolithic kernel - easier to debug and develop than most kernel architectures and you still get good performance - better than most microkernels.
It scales incredibly well, and you can adapt and choose your scheduler to be optimized for desktop use, industrial realtime use, or batch processing.
Not only has it been great in the past (it has) it's constantly and rapidly improving.
addition of uninformed articles by uneducated writers to their
site.
This gentlemen has obviously no idea what he is talking about,
and he needs to study the industry some more, and talk to some
qualified experts before polluting the already polluted Internet
landscape with his junk... Here are some examples:
"The minute he or Apple mentions "enterprise," run in the other
direction.".... This might have been true 5 years ago, but
obviously he has not heard of X-Serve, X-Serve RAID, and Mac
OS X Server. Apple might not be the #1 choice for Enterprise
right now, but that is no reason for anyone to "run in the other
direction"....
--openness and interoperability be damned , It's not open,
and it's not industry standard or industry certified. It's just
better. & Once again, this is completely uninformed. When Jobs
came back to Apple, he introduced Mac OS X, based completely
on open standards and even Open Source Software. It is true
that the Aqua user interface is not an open standard, but all the
important underlying components are&Apples Safari is based
on Open Source Software (OSS)& iChat is based on open
standards& iCal, iSync, and Address Book are based on open
standards&. Most of the server software in Mac OS X Server is
OSS& need I go on?
iSync with Bluetooth would finally make it dead simple to switch
phones without trashing address books. & It already does&
hate to break to you, but there are lots of Bluetooth enabled
phones already out there that are compatible& Apple doesnt
need to make their own phone& The Synchronization process
that iSync uses is also based on open standards (SyncML)&.
Linux plus Apple? & I shouldnt even comment on how stupid
this comment is& But Steve Jobs is more brilliant than the
author can even comprehend. Fist of all, Mac OS X is based
mostly on FreeBSD, not OpenBSD& there is a big difference&
secondly, Linux is has a more restrictive GPL license that makes
it less business friendly , and that might have played a large
part in it not being chosen as the basis of Darwin (the Unix
behind OS X). Also, I believe that FreeBSD is superior to Linux in
some ways, and therefore a better starting point anyway.
In conclusion I feel very sorry for Forrester Research to have this
man as their chief executive. Maybe he is a smart man overall,
but if you have not researched a topic thoroughly you should not
write about it, especially on a popular site like news.com.
What are you talking about? The Mac already has native MS Office and alternatives, and nobody has a more "integrated" desktop than Apple has now. Most apps for GNU/Linux can already be compiled into native OS X executables. It also comes with the X windowing environment. And to top it off, vendors have been offering Linux on Mac hardware for years, if that's what you want. So, what are you going on about here?
Almost any computer can run Linux. But as B*ll G*tes has proven, that's not the same as shipping systems with it and getting royalties, is it?
So I think what he's after is for Apple to base future systems on Linux to compete better with Windows. Whether that will convince Linux fans to buy Macs or if it's just the propeller on his head talking, time will tell. ;)