On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh came into the world, starting the second major revolution in the personal computer industry. Steve Jobs and team took some lessons from Xerox PARC and created the first user-friendly, mass market computer.
By today's standards, it wasn't that user-friendly (some will remember disk-swapping with the original Mac, which had 128KB of RAM and a 400KB 3.5-inch floppy disk drive), but compared with Microsoft's DOS operating system, it was a major technical innovation.
The Macintosh at 25: 1984 - 2009.
The 128K Mac version of the graphical user interface, with icons, fonts, folders, audio and a mouse, started a new era of computing that hasn't yet run its full course. MacPaint, MacWrite, and eventually LaserWriter, PageMaker, and Photoshop led to a revolution in desktop publishing, and AppleTalk made networking relatively simple.
The Macintosh introduced typography to personal computers.
(Credit: Susan Kare)
After nearly 25 years, the Macintosh and its offspring, such as the iPod and iPhone, are still leading in terms of setting the pace for innovation. Mac sales climbed over the past several years, but still represent a small portion of overall PC sales and have slowed down recently. The iPod holds market share in its category and the iPhone has set a new standard for smart phones.
With the annual Macworld conference approaching, and Steve Jobs declining to participate in the proceedings, expectations are low for any major announcements.
Of course, the Mac fan sites and blogs are full of speculation about Steve Jobs' health, a new Mac Mini and iMac, a quad-core Mac laptop, new home servers, a cloud-based version of the iWork suite of applications, an iPod e-book reader, and a Netbook with a 7- to 9-inch screen.
Whatever Apple announces at Macworld, without Jobs spinning his reality distortion field onstage, the result will be less impactful. Nonetheless, don't expect the Mac faithful to walk away from Macworld without something to satisfy their cravings.
In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss the flailing economy. The CFOs explaining the financial results on tech company earnings calls echoed the sentiments and uncertainty of every other company and industry. As Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell stated:
We're not economic forecasters, and there is a high degree of uncertainty in outlook based on the state of the economy. As a result we've adjusted our guidance approach as follows. At the top end we're assuming a mild recession, and a relatively modest growth rate for all IT-based products. While at the bottom end we're assuming a deeper recession in the economy and end-season lower growth for IT.
Even Apple's Steve Jobs had something to say about the economy: "Your next-door neighbor can likely predict what is going to happen as accurately as we can."
We also preview what's coming next week at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles next week.
In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I talk about how the economic crisis will impact the tech sector. Both the House and Senate have passed the bailout package, but the legislation doesn't mean that tech or any other industry sector will reverse the downward spiral. Tech companies and financial analysts are rapidly cutting estimates to prepare for a potential nuclear winter in the global economy.
We also discuss Microsoft's forthcoming moves into cloud computing and the state of citizen journalism following the fake Steve Jobs heart attack story that showed up on CNN.
Microsoft is applying its tried and true formula of creating software platforms that can attract millions of users and developers to the hosted applications world. It will be the next major frontier for Microsoft to conquer, competing with companies such as Amazon.com, EMC, Google, IBM, and others. And it's safe to bet that Microsoft becomes one of the major players in the cloud. More to come at Microsoft's PDC event later this month.
On this week's EIC Squared podcast ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss Google's latest disruption in the Web 2.0 field, the Chrome browser, as well as Apple's product launch event on September 9. In addition, Larry explains his idea that Dell and Salesforce.com could merge. Dell is trying to be more of a software company and is using the Force.com platform, and Salesforce.com is a major Dell customer. But, it's unclear how Salesforce.com, its shareholders and customers, would hugely benefit from a union.
Today is Bill Gates' last day in the office as a regular employee of the company he co-founded in 1975. But as non-executive chairman and someone who is deeply married to Microsoft, Gates is not disappearing from the company.
Chairman Bill Gates
(Credit: Dan Farber)The transition has been well orchestrated, and he will still spend about 20 percent of his time working on Microsoft issues, such as the next-generation Office, natural interfaces, and search. And, he will still obsess and strategize about how to defeat Google.
Bill Gates field questions from this reporter.
(Credit: Michael Arrington)I have been covering Microsoft and Bill Gates for the last 25 years, and I've had a few memorable run-ins with the him over that time. I remember asking him about upstart programming language Java's write once/run anywhere capability in an interview I did with him in the early 1990s. He sat forward in his chair and said with conviction that Java was a stupid idea. Behind that answer, the hyper-competitive Gates was thinking about how to slay the Java dragon. Several years later Microsoft C# appeared.
And who can forget his duel with David Boies in the U.S. Justice Department vs. Microsoft antitrust case. Gates believed that the government was out to destroy Microsoft, and went on the offensive. To this day, he chafes at being called a "convicted monopolist."
In many ways Gates is very much the same as when I met him a few decades ago. His tenacity, intellectual intensity, passion for technology, and competitiveness have remained intact. Now he will be applying those character traits more fully to eradicating polio, malaria, AIDS, and other diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
I can imagine one of his chief rivals, Steve Jobs, giving him a gold-plated iPhone 3G for his retirement with the inscription: "To Bill Gates: Look who's ahead now. Best of luck, Steve Jobs."
That would like dangling meat in front of a hungry lion. Gates would accept the gift with a wry smile and at the same time think about what it would take to trump the iPhone. Even though Vista didn't leapfrog the Mac OS, and Microsoft has rarely been able to out-innovate Apple, the fire is still burning and Gates will be firing off a flurry of e-mails to Steve Ballmer and others he's left in charge.
Chairman Bill Gates and three top execs: Craig Mundie, Ray Ozzie and Steve Ballmer
(Credit: Microsoft)In an interview this week, Tom Brokaw of NBC asked Gates if he had an iPod. He responded, "No," and added, "The Zune is a better way to carry your music around." Vintage Bill Gates competitiveness.
(Credit:
NBC)
The planet will be better off with Gates focused on technologies and strategies for saving lives rather than defeating Steve Jobs.
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On this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss the latest moves in carving up the wireless world as Verizon Wireless announced plans to acquire Alltel for $28.1 billion. It won't be long before the U.S. wireless industry shakes out into AT&T, Verizon, and a Sprint/T-Mobile merger. We also discuss the latest news in the travails of Yahoo as it tries to keep Carl Icahn from taking over the board.
Plus, we speculate about the Steve Jobs' keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday.
In the post I wrote about Rich Miner of Google saying that the Android mobile software stack will gain more users than the iPhone, several people commented. The general consensus is that Apple is the BMW of the personal computer industry and is the standard for innovation that its competitors, with far more market share, follow. Android is a non-factor.
The challenge for Apple is to keep coming up with proprietary products that fuel its business model, which is based on innovation and R&D around both hardware and software. Since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company has had a series of hit products that don't dominate markets (with the exception of the iPod) but appeal to an elite and influential minority. Even Apple's advertising makes the marketing from competitors look tedious and uninspired.
Apple's tightly bound software and hardware provides unique differentiation in a world of mostly undifferentiated PCs and mobile devices. RIM's Blackberry also has had success by controlling its entire product.
Microsoft has made progress with its Windows Vista operating system, and its OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have created slicker PCs and laptops to run the software, but the Macintosh is still considered a superior product overall.
Jobs is clearly making the right choice for now not to license the Mac, iPhone, or iTunes software to hardware makers. Getting into a battle for OEMs with Microsoft, Google, Symbian, RIM, and Palm, etc. is a losing strategy at this juncture. The best mobile operating system and user experience doesn't necessarily win the deals, even with Steve Jobs as the chief negotiator. Microsoft is extremely capable in working with OEMs and developers, which is a key factor in building out a platform.
On other hand, it would be interesting to see what developers could do if Apple open sourced the iPhone software. The mobile Web experience is the new center of attention and R&D spending in the tech industry. Google's Android will be a good test case. If Android were to become successful, due to its openness and developer community, Apple would feel the heat. An army of smart developers with Google behind it could create a next-generation mobile Web operating system and application platform that challenges Apple far more than the current set of incumbents.
But Jobs is uniquely talented and a master of total product design. Handset manufacturers come up with dozens of phone designs per year, but haven't been able to duplicate the user experience of the iPhone. You could say the Nokia N95, the HTC Touch, and other smartphones have similar capabilities, but they don't match the slickness, pinching, and other capabilities of the Apple device despite its flaws (no 3G network and inaccessible battery, for example). The iPhone is also part of a family of personal devices that will become even more integrated.
Throwing open-source Android into the mix could give mobile device makers a better platform to take on the iPhone, but they will be mostly competing with each other for market share.
The iPhone will continue to be the BMW or Lexus of mobile devices, with modest share and lots of profit and envy from other mobile device makers. However, Apple could stumble, failing to keep up the rapid pace of innovation, but I wouldn't count on it as long as Jobs is in the house.
(Credit:
Fortune)
So, what we have here is another Fortune magazine cover featuring Steve Jobs: Apple is now the Most Admired Company in America. But inside the magazine, the crown turns thorny. Peter Elkind tells us about "The Trouble With Steve Jobs." You see, he breaks rules.
The author starts with a lofty goal: "It may be instructive, then, to consider what drives the Steve Jobs adventure." Unfortunately, in a piece that is by turns schoolmarmish and leering, we're served a warmed-over compilation of Silicon Valley lore, of known and alleged infractions. No insight in sight. Try this: remove Jobs' name from the rap sheet. Now, does Steve Doe look any different from scores of unremarkable humans, good citizens or petty criminals?
Just for fun, I'm sure Peter Elkind will be a good sport about it, let's turn the projector back on the author. Let's scrutinize his appetites as documented in his writings: a book about the Enron scandal, another about a murderous pediatric nurse in Texas, and magazine articles covering Wall Street malfeasance. Does Steve belong to any of Mr. Elkind's favorite beats?
Steve might look like he's running a business but he is, in fact, a creator, an artist, not a business manager -- notwithstanding the terrific numbers. How do you explain Steve's string of unequalled creations? The Apple II, the Macintosh, Pixar (think Ratatouille's Oscar), reviving the Mac and Apple, iTunes and the iPod, Apple stores and the iPhone. Is this the result of a Mitt Romneysque crunching of market data or is it the mysterious firing of a maniacal engine of creativity and iron will?
There is no secret to pierce here, we're dealing with a mystery. Secrets are locks, they're to be picked. Mysteries have no combination, they leave logic helpless. Here, metaphors are in order.
Metaphors provide a bridge between ideas when the connection of deductive logic fails, when there is no lock to pick. In my metaphor, Steve Jobs is Silicon Valley's Yves Saint Laurent, a prima donna assoluta , no hidden pun, no typos allowed, a creator who towers above his profession and defies rational explanation.
Yves Saint Laurent
(Credit: Pierre Boulat )Yves Saint Laurent made tons of money but couldn't be accused of being a businessman. And the couturier's behavior... Steve can't even begin to approach Yves' well-documented collection of deportments. (Alicia Drake's book on Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld is a terrific and instructive read.)
Of course, of course, we know society needs rules. Many in the Valley fear someone some day might find a way to nail Steve. Imagine the prize for a buck attorney or a dogged investigative reporter: set for life.
Still, do we want Steve's next Spring collection or do we want a Fortune writer to tell us how rule-abiding Apple's CEO is? Actually, no danger of the latter: no controversy, no advertising revenue. We don't break that rule.
Jean-Louis Gassée
Jean-Louis Gassée is a partner with the venture firm Allegis Capital. Prior to Allegis Capital, Gassée founded the pioneering multimedia system software company Be, Inc., which was sold to Palm in 2001. He previously served as president of the Apple Products Division was the CEO of the French affiliates of Data General and Exxon Office Systems. He started his tech career at Hewlett-Packard.
My former teammate and now editor in chief of ZDNet, Larry Dignan, and I continue our weekly podcast (formerly called "Between the Lines") covering the top headlines of the week. This week on "EIC Squared," we two square editor in chiefs discuss the iPhone's quest to seduce business users, some of the highlights from Microsoft's Mix '08 conference, and Facebook's new chief operating officer.
When Steve Jobs sneezes, everyone pays attention. On Thursday, he blew out the doors on the iPhone with an array of alliances and applications that make the device less of a phone and more of a powerful computer in the palm of your hand. You can see where the so-called smartphone is heading, and Apple is leading the way in terms of usability. The choice of networks--no 3G as yet--isn't an ideal choice, however.
With more processing power and memory, plus shrinking components and smarter software, you will end up with a supercomputer in your hand. And if Steve Jobs has his way, Apple will have a generous share of the market and lead on the innovation front.
In reality, Apple is late to the smartphone corporate e-mail and applications space, and the iPhone is still a blip in the overall market. But, for those who care about fit and finish, usability and aesthetics, Jobs is unbeatable. You have to wonder what he will pull out of his bag of tricks next, and if he doesn't have another major hit, how Apple will fare.
Check out our comprehensive coverage here. We'll have video from the event, more photos, and ongoing analysis. See also the swarm from the blogosphere on Techmeme.
Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone application platform
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