Comments on: Is Apple in danger of becoming Microsoft?

With Microsoft's reign as the world's evil empire drawing to a close, Don Reisinger believes that Apple will fill that perceived role. Just don't expect him to agree.

[quadj]

I agree with you except for one thing...Microsoft has been convicted of anti-monopolist practices on several fronts. (I'm not sure why people tend to forget this fact.)

[blcArmadillo]

Do you mean convicted of monopolist practices? As in they've been convicted of using tactics typically associated with a monopoly. Or did you really mean that they have been convicted for not pursuing monopolist tactics?

[chaps_84]

How can you be convicted of anti-monopolist practices? I think you mean Monopolist practices

[originalanalog]

My bias be known, I'm a huge fan of Apple and at times an apologist. That said, I love the irony that Apple maintaining control of the iPhone throughout the partnership with AT&T (known to have TERRIBLE customer service) somehow makes Apple evil. Who in their right mind want's to have AT&T support their iPhone? Setting up my iPhone is the only good customer service experience I've had with AT&T. Jobs' ego and need for control that some love to hate is the reason Apple has completely turned around. Sure, it occasionally overreaches (like the limitations of the iPhone and unflinching position with NBC) but without that ego the iPhone wouldn't exist.

[qwerty75]

Microsoft isn't considered evil because of its market share. It is evil because of its unethical and illegal business practices.

[Renegade Knight]

When a company reaches out and costs you money and an honest effort to resolve the problem results in "talk to the hand" I can't say they are evil. Just completely underserving of any support in any way for any of ther poducts. You don't get that kind of treatment from a company without a corporate policy demanding it. That's Microsoft in the modern era. Too big to actually care about customers directly.

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.

[Jkirk3279]

Apple's had a two-button mouse for over a year, and SUPPORT for multi-button mice for years.

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.

[rexscar]

Why no 2 button mouse? - maybe because apples 'mighty mouse' has 4 buttons?
unlocked iPhones were going for a fraction of the retail price on ebay.
blame AT&T.
Everything costs money.
blah

[financegozu]

I love this kind of comments.
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

[john55440]

Apple is already "delivering crap", the buggy Leopard, and the failed Apple TV.

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.

[sdotbailey4]

I don't think that Leopard is as bad as everyone's making it out to be. I got it the night it came out and installed it the next day. Not one hiccup. The only thing I had to so was re-enter my password to get onto the network at work. That's it. Not one issue. Sure, there's people with problems. Major ones in some cases but it's not like the system is just killing things and ruining lives. I don't think that an OS from MS ever just completely sucked on install either. I think the cases and comments are overblown in these instances.

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.

[DanM2]

If you don't understand why Microsoft was evil, you won't understand why Apple isn't evil. Apple didn't get a monopoly through illegal, anti-competitive business practices; Microsoft did. And it has consistently used that illegal monopoly as leverage as it attacks other market segments with the same predatory gusto. Apple's success is because it has good mojo and people enjoy the spirit behind its products, plus they are designed very well with great features. Those other mp3 players are great but they don't have the aesthetic quality of industrial design or the best online store access (to iTunes), plus people know the iPod name and trust it, like Sony's Walkman before it. I only know of one site which consistently disses Apple's products out of a sense of frustration at its success and that is CNET, which hungers for a horse race. Particularly disgusting is the way this site flogs the Microsoft Zune, the 4th, or is it 5th, most popular player, a cynical product made by a bunch of unethical jerks who were the bane of the industry, hated and feared by all, even Google's CEO, who still tries hard to tiptoe around and avoid getting Microsoft angry whenever he discusses his products, like a kid trying not to set off his drunken stepfather. It's really getting old. Now that Microsoft sees Apple's success and feeling threatened that their monopoly over media file formats, and hence their drive into the living room with the XBox, and even their browser monopoly and OS monopoly, is jeopardized, they release the Zune, and this site stands up and applauds, without informing its readers of the real motivations and consequences. Meanwhile Apple, getting ignored by the mp3 player manufacturers who were focusing on catering to the Windows monopoly and not bothering to make players that were compatible with the Mac, makes its own mp3 player, PC users and reviewers BEG them to release it for Windows, they do, and now this site complains that they're just like Microsoft. Which, of course, strategically does not offer the Zune for the Mac, unlike the bi-platform iPod which is available for both operating systems, though there wasn't a word about this in the review of the Zune, or in the above comparison of Apple to Microsoft. Ugh. Better reviewers, please.

[DrtyDogg]

Biased much? If you had actually read the Zune review at this website you would see
"[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.

[Drnich]

Dan, I?ve got to disagree with you. To start with, your comment of Microsoft being a monopoly is quite amusing considering your reference to a competing company (Apple) within the same sentence. For the record, I personally believe that an Apple computer is a better and more stable computing platform than a PC. However, from the amount of disdain you show toward Microsoft, I can only assume you have bought into the very effective marketing campaign that Apple launched with its famous 1984 super bowl commercial. It is here that Apple defined itself to the world as the ?anti-establishment? computer company, and became the industry?s lovable underdog. I believe that this was the turning point for Apple. It had already lost the corporate battle to Microsoft, and its only chance at maintaining any position in the personal computer market was to differentiate itself from the PC. Although Apple failed with the McIntosh to become the market leader within the household computing market, the iconic picture of the PC being associated as the Goliath, and Apple the proverbial David, was already developing.
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.

[mister_lister]

I worked for a company that microsoft ripped off big time. Before windows 95 came out, microsoft approached our company to buy some printing development and products to incorporate it into Windows 95 printing. The owner refused (it was a big product for us), so microsoft stole it, by reverse compling and changing a couple things. When we got the beta of Windows 95 and reversed complied the print engine, sure enough the code was very familiar, but changed in just enough ways to make a law suit a little rough.

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.

[Jkirk3279]

Yes, Microsoft has done that trick quite a few times.

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.

[ripar1]

The difference is that Microsoft achieved dominance with a mediocre (at best) product by using illegal and unethical business practices.

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.

[Jesse Chan]

Microsoft was/is an evil empire in that they make products that are not of highest-quality, but have excellent business acumen. This may lead to their downfall as more nimble companies like Google and Apple can attack them on product quality as well as well as business strategy: http://digg.com/microsoft/The_Downfall_of_the_Microsoft_Empire

[Michael Bird]

Without any need for hyperbole, I think this is the least insightful tech blog I have ever read. Have you even paid any attention to Microsoft's business activities over the course of the last 15 years?

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.

[Matthew Hurst]

Leopard is buggy? Really? Compared to what? I've used Leopard since day one and haven't had a problem. I've heard of problems and I've seen that Apple responded in a timely manner and fixed those issues. Every release of every OS has had issues that need to be addressed. Responding to customer complaints, and fixing them, is the the difference between those that get it and those that don't. ***, if you don't like iTunes, the iPod, OSX, Apple TV, the iPhone, Windows, Tivo, the VW Jetta...then buy something else. One thing we don't lack in our society is choice and free will. Use it.

[pilaa]

I have to comment here because obviously the writer of this article is a little short sited. Not sure if its because he is ignorant or just too young to know just where the moniker "Evil Empire" actually came from.

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.

[lone_horse_64]

*'MICROSOFT', LIKE "WAL-MART" = A MONSTER OF THEIR OWN CREATION!
* 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.

[Andy kaufman]

IBM was the evil empire before Microsoft was, and now Apple is becoming the evil empire. All three companies use unethical business practices and became a monopoly in some way.

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.

[GatesOfHell]

"Isn't it ironic that those players can do almost twice as much as the iPod and yet, we continue to buy the latter?"

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.

[rigel7]

Don,

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.

[bdplaid]

they're all greedy miscreants. the latest on apple's business practices, which is common:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/19/apple_display_update/

[i,Jimbot]

A brief comment or two regarding the author's point about the iPod. First, Apple does provide an end-to-end solution for MP3 players. Is this a bad thing? No. If Apple decided to create the iPod and wait for online music stores to create a seamless software to meet their needs, we'd all still be waiting, or they'd have a clunky store out there that works for PCs but not Macs. Apple decided to do it all so that it was done right, not half-assed.

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".

[Macbrewer]

No matter how much c/net tries every day to make this case, there is no truth to the assertions in this blog.

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.