Thursday, November 17, 2011

Steve Jobs - Hypocritical Whiner?

Steve Job's authorized biography is out and selling like I-cakes. While I haven't read it and can't see myself doling out money for it I have heard some of what is in it. The media focused a bit on comments Jobs made about Google.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."

And when Jobs met with the executives at Google to discuss the matter directly, he apparently went even further in expressing his distaste for Android, telling them, "I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." According to the author, the meeting did little to cool tensions between the two companies.

Wow. Strong words. Strange words too when you consider that a lot of Apple's breakthroughs were based on the tech of others. One article cited how Apple's interface and mouse controller was based on tech designed by Xerox Corp. I can remember seeing bits of OS Warp in Apple's OS, not to mention in Microsoft Windows. Nothing stopped Jobs and Apple from using the ideas of others. It seems hypocritical for him to get so bent out of shape because someone else did the same thing.

3 comments:

  1. BUT...they used the Xerox technology with full and up-front approval from Xerox...they were invited to their labs to look at what was going on. It was a business deal.

    That's the difference.

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  2. That is a big difference. It would be nice if the articles had mentioned that. Thanks for bringing it up.

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  3. My pleasure sir! I'll have to look at that part of the bio again and check the exact terms...but Apple and Microsoft both visited the Xerox facility...Apple first and Microsoft much later...and Apple poached a few of Xerox's staff as well. Business as usual.

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