nn
This is probably not exactly how they would characterize their relationship but I think its true consequently. Im not sure if there are two other individuals in the world who I admire more for their contributions to human progress and to finally see both of them live, one day right after another, marks for me the end of the concert.
Before my little twighlight of the idols, I often spoke about the first rock concert I ever went to and often considered my answer for the best I’d ever seen. When I used to go, we would hold up lighters in the air to show we were there. Now we hold up cameras and phones.
Apple and Microsoft have led the personal computing world with the two most pervasive operating systems on the planet and so here we are again, Mac vs. PC. Or rather, for a more healthy perspective, Mac and PC.
Perhaps the most profound point about Apple that Jobs unfortunately had to make himself, was their ability to innovate. As he mentioned, a company is usually lucky if it is able to bring one revolutionary product to market in it’s life-span. Apple has brought at least two and stands a big chance with it’s iPhone and underemphasized Apple TV player.
Apple did not invent the mouse but they brought it to market and everyone has followed in their footsteps. Apple did not bring file-sharing or the mp3 player to market but along with iTunes, they lead with listeners and the music industry over the iPod. The record industry may still have a hold on Apple with some respects to their own technological and financial activity, though arguably, Apple is now controlling online market prices.
Microsoft, by contrast, is not really known as the company of innovation, but seems to be better at taking the innovation that has been proven in the market to the mass market. Bill Gates laid out a road map that involved a strategy almost entirely devoted to the pervasive spread of their products.
To use the Zune example again, you can see how with little to no innovation Microsoft can bring a clone product to the market with features that have already been proven to sell. Even after being panned, it appears to now be a competitive seller (today at #17 on Amazon).
I used to pride myself in being ambidextrous with both Mac OS and Windows, but over the last two years, I wound up entirely on Macs due to Rocketboom. Since XP has not changed much, I haven’t really missed much, but I became pretty rusty I noticed. Just a couple of weeks ago I received the much talked about Ferrari Laptop from Edelman, it’s one of the most amazing gifts ever considering how bad ass the computer is. I decided to give it away on Rocketboom but first, I’m going to take a month or so to become an expert at Vista. I want to stay fresh with what the rest of the world is about to go through.
nn
