Apple, IBM and PCs (Re: Apple, Jobs, and the irony of it)

[Usenet1@gabrielmorales.net (Gabriel Morales)]

First of, I'd like to say hello to to comp.sys.apple2, including
Rubywand, SuperTimer, Obsbedia2, Phoenyx, and all the posters of old I
still see on here on brief browse. I was afraid CSA2 may have been no
more, but I am very glad to still see it still chugging along. My last
post was quite some time ago. I've been busy with quite a number of
other matters lately.

But, looking up CSA2 out of curiosity, I found your thread,
Supertimer, and decided to respond. ;-)

This system won't let me reply to the original thread, because it's
more than a month old, so I had to start a new thread.

SuperTimer wrote:

> Now IBM is the savior of
> Apple.  Funny how in the latest issue of PC
> Magazine is a two page advertisement for
> the G5 Mac extolling the virtues of the G5,
> bragging about how IBM designed it based
> on their Power4 architecture.

It's true that Apple's "1984" had IBM as "Big Brother" in the minds of
Apple. But you seem to be implying that Apple has "sold out", or
switched allegiances in some way.

Rather, it seems to me, that Apple mistook IBM for its enemy back in
the Apple II days, and Microsoft for its friend. Turns out, that IBM
wasn't the enemy or Big Brother, but Microsoft was the enemy and has
become this "Big Brother".

Apple saw IBM this way because IBM used to be a monopoly itself, and
then, as now, is a huge corporation, with a long history, in contrast
Apple was a new, fresh company. Also, IBM's culture was much more
formal and serious, in contrast to the informal and defiant t-shirt
and jean wearing Apple culture, like Microsoft. So, you can see how
Apple perceived MS as a friend and IBM as the enemy.

In the long run, IBM, even though it did compete with Apple, has never
been the enemy. It is clear now that Microsoft is the monopolistic
enemy and IBM is a "friend". Perhaps it is ironic, but I don't think
Apple has "sold out" in any way, just seen things how they truly are.
And, of course, this has been going on since the formation of the PPC.

> Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were cut from the same cloth.

I don't fully agree. I will admit that they do have similarities. They
are both ambitious and business savvy. But, I think the difference is
that Jobs has a creative vision of things, while Gates does not. Jobs'
Apple has essentially pushed the industry forward, while Gates'
Microsoft has made the industry stagnate by illegally and unethically
crushing competition, to name just one tactic. Out of all the
"pioneers" I prefer Woz, though. But, he is something totally
different.

Greg Buchner wrote:

> The 1984 commercial may have represented IBM at the time, but watching
> the commercial now, I definitely think of Microsoft.

Exactly!

SuperTimer wrote:

> My bet is still on evolution.  Jobs thought the
> same thing when he drew the line between
> the Apple II and the Mac and the result was
> Apple losing much of its existing user base
> (we went to the PC).

> In contrast, the PC has evolved rather than
> breaking from the past and its user base
> has grown tremendously.  No doubt this has
> to do with many reasons, one of them being
> the competitive effect of the clones (which
> were what really made the PC successful
> with IBM all but bowing out).  But the fact
> that the platform was an unbroken line of
> evolution from the first IBM PC no doubt
> has contributed to its success.

> Evolution does not mean hanging on to all
> aspects of the architecture forever.  It is
> possible to hang on to the last two or three
> layers and shed the older ones.  This gives
> time for users to adjust.  This was what
> happened with the ISA bus in the transition
> to PCI.  First there was ISA.  Then there
> was ISA and PCI on the same boards.  Now
> there is only PCI or PCI and PCI-X.

Evolution is not bad. It may even be difficult to differentiate
"evolution" from "revolution" sometimes. But, I think too many
compromises have been made on the PC side. "Competition" of cloners
who only copy motherboard and chip designs may have actually slowed
progress.

It all comes down to who has the cheapest prices. This type of market
leaves very little room for major innovation, which is why you end up
with a multitude of copy-cat cloners, like Dell, and would-be
innovators move on or die off. It takes a lot of money, dedication and
resources to do true R&D. Meanwhile your competitor has cheaper
systems.

Of course, you always have groups of people, unlike most, who are
willing to spend more for innovation and better designs. Eventually,
this trickles down to mainstream PCs.

The other thing is that you don't have any real "leader" on the PC
side. There's no one who sets standards that must be adhered to. Any
"standard" takes many years to adopt, or may never be adopted for one
reason or another, even if it's better than what's out there now.
That's why so many PCs *still* have PS/2 ports, more than 5 years
after the original iMac and 8 years after the standard was introduced.

Apple decided to drop USB 5 years ago and it gave users intermediary
computers with old serial and ADB interfaces. Companies came out with
adaptors and expansion cards. I don't think virtually any Macintosh
user today regrets going from ADB/Serial to USB. I surely don't.


SuperTimer, I know your faith in Apple ceased when they killed the
Apple II series. I have to say I agree with you in that it was wrong.
It was wrong and hypocritical. But, that was a long time ago, and
there was an internal struggle at Apple at the time, as you know.

Furthermore, I think Apple is preferable to Microsoft, both in terms
of values and software technology. And Apple has done a lot of great
things, both hardware and software wise, since the introduction of the
iMac.
-----------------------

By the way, I still have a few A2 projects in mind. I'll let you know
about that as soon as I have time. First, I'm trying to build a PC...
yes, a PC, and with a preference towards AMD. It's for Linux and
experiments, mostly. My Mac will still be my main machine. :-)

Thanks,

Gabriel Morales <http://Gamoe.net/>