Is Apple in danger of becoming Microsoft?
Approximately 10 years ago, Microsoft was easily one of the most hated companies in the world. With monopoly-oriented questions swirling around, and Bill Gates acting as the benchmark for just how bad big business can be, public perception of the company couldn't have been worse.
Of course, the most vexing issue surrounding that time was the fact that Microsoft was extremely successful at sitting atop the tech mountain, and much of its competition faded due to poor business practices and not necessarily as the result of product pricing.
If we fast-forward 10 years, the technology industry landscape looks much different. And while Microsoft is still hated by hard-core tech gurus, it has become an aging empire that may be on the verge of a huge collapse. To make matters worse, its figurehead--Bill Gates--is poised for his departure at the Consumer Electronics Show, and the future of his legacy is in doubt.
And with possible turmoil facing Redmond, a new company has emerged that could be in danger of taking the top spot as the world's most hated tech company. Only this time, the company was once an underdog that people hoped could turn things around. Well, it did. And with the help of its deitylike leader, some believe that Apple is on the verge of becoming this generation's so-called evil empire.
Of course, whether it really is an evil company doesn't matter. In this business, the court of public opinion will determine Apple's fate, and if it continues to do what it's doing, it may become one of the most hated tech companies in the world within the next 10 years.
To me, this idea of an 'evil empire' ruling the world of technology is an extremely short-sighted and inconsequential summation of what is really going on behind the scenes in the world's largest tech companies.
Although most people would disagree, I don't think Microsoft was ever evil, and in turn, I will never agree that Apple is evil. But one man's opinion certainly can't speak louder than millions, and so that term will continue to crop up with each passing of the former evil empire.
At its height, the fight against Microsoft revolved around its opponents' belief that the company was using its immense size and power to coerce--either legally or illegally--companies into licensing deals that cemented Microsoft as the de facto leader in the industry, with not a glance at what it was doing to its competitors. In turn, this created a monopolistic fervor among critics who claimed that Microsoft was the epitome of what unbridled growth can do to an industry.
On the Apple side of things, Steve Jobs and company have enjoyed unrivaled success with the iPod, and its integration with iTunes has created an end-to-end solution that some have called unfair.
Why, you ask? Well, take a look at other portable media players, and compare those to the iPod. Isn't it ironic that those players can do almost twice as much as the iPod and yet, we continue to buy the latter? Simply put, the iPod has a stranglehold on the MP3 player market, and some are wondering what can be done to stop it.
A court case filed in 2005 also addresses this issue. Dubbed Slattery v. Apple, the case features 10 counts of monopolistic endeavors through the iPod and iTunes connection, and asks the court to break the link between both solutions.
Of course, the lawsuits don't quite end there. In 2005, Apple was awarded the right to subpoena ThinkSecret, Apple Insider, and PowerPage for leaking details on the company's product plans.
Is Apple really that awful company that throws caution to the wind while doing everything it can to turn an even bigger profit? Some think so.
After making a deal with AT&T--one of the most hated companies in the world--for its iPhone, Apple may have showed its true colors when it bricked iPhones and basically wrested all control from AT&T on iPhone production.
Sure, some Apple apologists would say Apple just knows better, but others claim that it's just another example of Apple becoming evil.
Finally, most Apple haters like to talk about the company's "price gouging," whereby it charges too much for a device that can barely be configured and features most of the same components as a Windows-based machine. To make matters worse, the company charges a premium for its iPods, requires you to pay 99 cents for a ringtone when the same song costs that much, and generally does a fine job of providing a premium experience at a premium price.
Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
Now for the truth
Let me say this loud and clear: Apple is not in any way an evil empire and shouldn't even be thought of in that way. Further, Microsoft was never an evil empire, either. Who came up with this idea that just because a company is extremely successful and commands most of the market, it must be evil?
Personally, I think this mind-set is endemic to the entire human population. More often than not, people will find ways to hate large institutions for the sake of hating.
Think about it: people hate the New York Yankees, yet Derek Jeter is probably one of the classiest men to ever play the game; people hate Bill Gates, yet he's one of the biggest philanthropists in the world; some people hate the United States because of its perceived warmongering, yet it's the world's go-to country when something goes wrong. Am I missing something here?
In the end, the term "evil empire" is outdated, stupid, and does nothing to solve one of the biggest issues we face today: are we getting the kinds of products we want? So far, Apple has been able to provide just that. But if it decides to go the way of Microsoft, delivering crap, trust me, Steve Jobs will be the first to know about it.
That said, this is one man's opinion, and unfortunately, this society is ruled by a large group of people who like to beat up on big companies just because they're big. And it's for that reason that--justified or not--Apple will become the next generation's evil empire.
Just don't expect me to agree.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Apple on the other hand is just as draconian in different ways. Why no 2 button mouse? Why brick the iPhone? Why force a kickback from AT&T that customers have to pay when they already paid a fortune for the iPhone? I'm looking for alternates to Microsoft because of their direct failur to negitiate a probem they created that cost me money, but I'm not sure Apple is it either.
Logitech makes a good product, why should Apple interfere with that?
As for the iPhone, let me point out what happened the a different time Apple had a great product come out.
It was this odd little computer that didn't run DOS. It used an odd little puck called a "mouse".
There wasn't much of a market for this new kind of computer. But coupled with the invention of the Laser printer, sales started to go pretty well.
Until Apple lost control of the market to a ruthless competitor.
That competitor went on to become the biggest tech company in the world.
So, this time out, Apple has decided to maintain control of their products.
unlocked iPhones were going for a fraction of the retail price on ebay.
blame AT&T.
Everything costs money.
blah
Phase 1: Lament about Apple because they only have 1-button mice
Phase 2: When Apple comes out with a multi-button mouse, lament that there are too many buttons.
Hint: You can enable/disable the buttons as you like in the system preferences to dumb down your mighty mouse to 3, 2 or 1 buttons
Apple isn't evil, just smug, arrogant, and dictitorail. (grin)
The iBrick phone is just the latest example of Apple's long-term philosophy of limiting customer choice, by keeping things closed and proprietary.
And, the Apple TV isn't as big a "failure" as everyone thinks. More of them were sold than TiVo's this year. I recently bought one and it's pretty damn cool. It helps because I don't have to be tethered to my desk to watch movies or stream music to my stereo. It all depends what you need it for. It's not a failure. It'll pick up.
And, the iPhone, if you haven't heard, is a runaway success. The number of people that want to mess with its insides is far smaller than those that don't care. It's marketshare has already destroyed what it took some companies to build over years. Game. Changer.
"[b]The bad:[/b] The Zune is a PC-only device that requires its own software . . ." But why actually read things when you can just rant about how C|Net is against one of, if not the largest advertiser on the site. Also the iPod wasn't released for the PC until 3 years after it came out which is also when it finally eclipsed the millions sold mark.
The truth is neither company is good or evil, they are both trying to make money and they are both very successful at it.
Your comment referencing Apple?s ?good mojo? and ?spirit behind its products? is further evidence of Apple?s effectiveness in continuing to market its corporate culture into its products. In fact, Apple and Microsoft are usually the de facto example in most Marketing classes when it comes to comparing competing companies? public images. Microsoft is viewed as the ?Suit? company while Apple is usually seen as the ?Jeans & T-shirt? company. This metaphoric image of a ?down to earth? company, along with being the consistent underdog, has placed Apple Inc. on a pedestal within the public?s eye. Therefore, the only way for Apple?s chief competitor, Microsoft, to be viewed is as an ?evil corporate giant?.
However, times appear to be changing for America?s lovable underdog computing company. Now that it has claimed the lead in the mp3 market, allegations of corporate greed stemming from over-pricing and high profile lawsuits over non-replaceable i-pod batteries have started to tear away at that ?down to earth? corporate image.
I'm not trying to say that one company is better than the other and I don't have a horse in this race, but there is one thing to keep in mind as a consumer: Maximization of shareholder profits is the first goal for any For-Profit company.
That was my first real introduction to Microsoft's business tactics, which continues to this day, despite law suits.
For this reason I have bipassed both Apple and Microsoft and use exclusively open source software and OSs. I keep up with microsoft because of the work place but at home, I use Linux.
IIRC, Novell sued M$ for ripping off their networking software, and of course, Windows Media Player has code from Quicktime in it.
Apple had hired a consultant firm to develop the new Quicktime engine, and SOMEHOW that code ended up in WMP.
That anyone can actually "wave off" the idea that Microsoft is evil and predatory is simply amazing to me.
Frederic Pohl wrote about a future where megacorporations would run everything and get away with it... I'm worried he might have been a little too close for comfort.
Microsoft strategy was to eliminate competition by doing (among other things):
a) buy them out, then often just killing the product
b) kill their market (by spreading FUD or making it impossible to use on Windows)
c) co-opting the technology (either hire away the competition's talent, create a poor facsimile, or outright steal)
d) spend the competition into bankruptcy.
e) delay or deny 3rd party access to Windows code (think Wordperfect)
The point being that Microsoft, unlike most other companies is not interested in succeeding. It is interested in crushing competitors into non-existence. Big difference.
Oh, as for your Apple points:
Apple subpoenaed those sites on perfectly legal grounds. They were interested in discovering who leaked the information. The leaks were most probably under NDA, and were liable. The sites were not being sued directly.
The iPod became dominant, if you recall, because it was simply the best product available. Not because they somehow disabled the ability to use a Creative player on Mac or Windows.
iTunes is "monopolistic" from it's DRM, which is directly from the music studios, not Apple. Currently, if you purchase non-DRM music from iTunes or anywhere else, it will work perfectly fine on other non-Apple players or software.
By the way, is it requisite that applicant wishing to write for cnet tick a box promising to base every article they write on an implication of Apple conducting itself unethically? I don't understand for the life of me why cnet and its writers try to so hard to smear Apple. It was very effective in the 20th century to write headlines like The Pope to Eat Human Babies for Breakfast? as a headline, making the implication while never legally asserting something. Now it just reveals bias. No matter what you write in the body of the article, the implication stands and its as Yellow as the Spanish Armada sinking the U.S.S. Maine in Cuba.
I have a Masters Degree in Computer Science and have worked as an engineer in the tech industry for almost 28 years and remember quite vividly how Microsoft and Apple evolved into the companies they are today. Apple has always been a company that marched to a "different drum" so to speak. They have always been about innovation, industrial design and ease of use. They relied on their own research and development to create their products for the most part. I know people will say Xerox PARC gave them a big head start but Microsoft also benefited/profitted from Xerox's technology as well. Not too many people acknowledge this fact but it is true just as much as it was when Microsoft benifited and gained the upper hand in buying Seattle DOS in order to garner that famed IBM deal back in 1980.
The "Evil Empire" moniker came when Microsoft started bullying PC manufactors with their infamious EULA and other deals that penalized OEM's from installing other operating systems or had to pay Microsoft a license fee whether the OS was installed on a machine of not. Microsoft also gained a competitive advantage by essentially "stealing" and incorporating technology into its products. If you need references you can "Google" these companies for the history of Microsoft' s unethical business practices: Stac Electronics, Digital Research (DRDOS), IBM and OS/2, Netscape, GEM, and even Apple (Windows vs MacOS interface lawsuit). This is just the tip of the iceburg. There are plenty more to add to that list, just ask Larry Ellison (Oracle)or Phillip Kahn of Borland in which Microsoft was accused of stealing employees among other things... So I would challenge you to check your facts on why competition faded, as you put it, to poor business practices or product priciing.
Additionally, I'd like to know if you can backup your retoric with a little more facts. You mention that AT&T is the most hated company in the world. Is this a fact or just your opinion? If its a fact, you need to site the source.
With regard to the iPod revolution: You, like Microsoft, still don't get it. Its not the number of features that make the iPod great, its the innovative simplicity and media delivery via iTunes that leaves everyone else in the dust. The iPod is not a closed archetecture and is compatible with Windows as well as Mac. It also allows you to rip your own music and play it and gives the use the option of playing standard MP3 files just like the Microsoft's product does.
In the end, it is the end user that determines the fate of a company and, quite personally, Apple is doing a much better job of listening to its customers and making insanely great products people want. This is not to say they are perfect and do not make mistakes (iPhone price drop) but they do listen and care about their public perception.
* MICROSOFT/APPLE/YAHOO/AOL/ETC/ETC, ARE A PACK OF ******, "SLEEPING-
TOGETHER"!
* YOU/WE, PAY $2,000.00 FOR A COMPUTER, AND ALL OF THE ABOVE LISTED?
"OWN-IT-IN-REALITY"!
* "W E", JUST PAY OUR HARD EARNED MONEY FOR "THE-PRIVILEGE" TO HAVE IT AND
USE IT!
* WITH THIS "PRIVILEGE" ..... COMES OUR CIVIL/HUMAN-RIGHT" TO GIVE UP ANY
"PRIVACY" THAT WE USED TO HAVE .... OUR CIVIL/HUMAN-RIGHT TO BE CENSORED
.... OUR CIVIL/HUMAN-RIGHT TO BE, INVADED/CONTROLED/MANIPULATED/BRAIN-
WASHED/ETC/ETC!
"QUESTION"
WHEN DO ALL THE SCREAMING 'X-NON-ANTI-SMOKERS' AND COHORTS WAKE UP TO THE FACT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
"FACT"
TAKE A VERY HARD AND SERIOUS LOOK AT THE WORLDS GOVERNMENTS TODAY.
DO YOU SEE THESE SCREAMING "X-NON-ANTI-WHAT-EVERS" JUMPING ON THE TRAIN WITH "WE/YOU/THEY-THE-PEOPLE" AND DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT?
"TRUTH"
THEY 'ONLY' ATTACK WHAT IS "EASY-TO-DO".... WITHOUT DONATING ANY BLOOD PERSE.
'WE-THE-PEOPLE', HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO A HEARD OF BLIND/WIMPY SHEEP.
AND WE ARE BEING SLOWLY LED TO SLAUGHTER.
I REST MY CASE.
Linux or *BSD Unix is the only way to go to be free of a monopoly. Sadly IBM, Apple, and Microsoft brainwash people into using their products and Linux and *BSD Unix will never get major marketshare as a result.
You admit that no one is forcing anyone to buy an iPod - that there are players that can do almost twice as much as the iPod, but we continue to buy iPods by our own free choice. So no issue there.
This issue is not even iTunes. iTunes is available for both Macs and PCs. The true heart of the complaint and concern is the iTunes Music Store: that by purchasing a DRM'ed song, video, whatever through the iTMS that I can't play it another MP3 player. Yep. But as said so many times:
1. The DRM stuff wasn't Apple's plan - the labels and studios insisted on that
2. When you buy a computer today, if it even comes with iTunes pre-installed (and most don't), you can delete iTunes. It's not like it's an integral part of the operating system.
3. Eve if you choose to use iTunes, no one is ever forcing you to shop at or even visit the iTMS.
4. No matter what you want from the iTMS it is, with fairly rare exceptions, available somewhere else on CD, DVD, another non-DRM'ed download site, etc. and, once obtained thusly, can be transferred to an iPod using Apple's own or easily obtainable 3rd party instructions and/or software.
While I agree that simply referring to a company as "evil" is a little spurious if done for no other reason than for the "sake of hating" as you say, one doesn't need to look very far to see TRUE EVIL in the actions taken by Microsoft. As a resident of King County, Washington, and having a large number of friends who were employed by the Evil Empire, I can tell you that they did things that were downright deplorable, unamerican, and yes, EVIL - as I define it.
Case in point: I personally knew an MS employee who's job it was to research small upstarts in the area who had patents or had cornered the market on a particular piece of technology that MS wanted, for strategic or other reasons. He would set up meetings with the heads of these small companies and show up with a small team of MS lawyers who would arrive with boxes of blank paper made to look like records and explain to the small company that MS was heavily into R&D on this particular technology (completely false) and would most likely overtake them in the market and then would have to bury them under the many patents of their own. (also complete fabrication) He would then offer the company a buy-out proposition that was pennies on the dollar, and walk away laughing (I mean that - he thought it was funny.) Microsoft has acquired countless technology advances through this underhanded process.
This kind of behavior is what garners Gates' company the ire from the public that it has, and is only one of many reasons that MS is deemed the complete ***** that they are. It has nothing to do with "hating for hate's sake" - at least not from my perspective.
PS - Ballmer is unbelievably psycho, and needs to be put down like the rabid dog he is. I would not leave my kids alone in a room with him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
>>Who came up with this idea that just because a company is extremely successful and >>commands most of the market, it must be evil?
>>
>>Personally, I think this mind-set is endemic to the entire human population. More often >>than not, people will find ways to hate large institutions for the sake of hating.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/19/apple_display_update/
Second, regarding the iPod. Author states that there are better players, but everyone uses iPods, and it's as though it's because Apple has somehow cornered the market. Not the case at all. People buy iPods in part because they are the easiest to use and best of breed. Others buy them because they are popular. They would not be popular if they were not easy to use. It's not like with Windows, where many people buy because they are worried about interoperability, or that they have software that won't work without it.
Apple does run the risk of tarnishing its reputation. It will continue to be the target of lawsuits so long as our legal system makes it easy to target money making companies with frivolous lawsuits. But Apple has not been convicted of illegal monopolistic practices, nor has it gained the reputation of buying companies and killing them off to stifle competition and technology. Microsoft has. Apple has a long way to go before becoming the new "evil empire".
- by Macbrewer December 19, 2007 1:36 PM PST
- No matter how much c/net tries every day to make this case, there is no truth to the assertions in this blog.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 4 pages (88 Comments)Apple is nothing like Microsoft. One has to wonder how anyone could be so naive as to actually believe the premise this article puts forth. How old are you? Surely you are right out of college and only recently though you would like to work in the tech field? Microsoft has for nearly thirty years focused on ripping off or buying other companies. Every product is designed to push it's monopoly. Maybe you have to be a Mac user, or a competitor i the business and experience this treatment first hand, to be painfully aware of it, but really it's hard to imagine any educated person over the age of 12 not to see these facts (certainly anyone with any real interest in technology).
Apple has thrived on innovation. Microsoft are only innovative in the myriad ways in which they have promoted themselves, not in any area of technology (not that they have not stolen or bought some good technologies, they just have not actually developed anything original.
MS are an illegal monopoly. There could be no greater contrast than of them to Apple.
Apple is getting much bigger, but that doesn't make them evil, it just means they are (finally) finding some success and the market if finally rewarding them for all the work they have done. Apple is not pulling any monopoly tactics.
Where does C/Net get people to write these blogs? The readers simply do NOT agree.