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May 05, 2010

Those who don't know their history are bound to repeat it

It's no secret - I don't like what Steve Jobs is doing with this whole Flash on Apple mobiles, and to be honest, I don't like the guy at all. He always appeared to me so full of himself.  As a matter of a fact, I don't like anyone who impose their power upon others just because they can.  Jobs, for one who stood up against Microsoft when it used it's power to set standards in the computing market, is now appearing to do exactly the same.
As the articles pile up about Apple and Adobe, I found myself wondering into the past of Apple, and more precisely into the past of Mr. Jobs. I found the following YouTube short documentary, that I urge you to watch. But if you don't have the time to spare check out below to see what I see and gather from it:



1977 (1:50 in the movie) - The apple II computers are a huge success for Apple. 2 million units sold (back then it's an amazing figure) and it became the standard for computers around the world. Kind of like the iPhone, right? Yeah… I would say.

1981 (2:35 in the movie) - IBM enters the market, and present a competition for Apple and Jobs. Kind of like Google Android and Nexus One?

Later Jobs is putting his trust in Graphic User Interface. A new and innovative feature that was sure to change the way people are interacting with computers - Kind of like the touch screen interface, no?

(3:35 in the movie)  - Job's picks Pepsi's  executive John Scully to lead the Apple business.

1984 (4:00 in the movie) - Apple Macintosh is released. Affordable, but more expensive than the IBM's. customers loved the interface but the availability of software on the new platform was a critical issue. Many software companies preferred writing for IBM's - Kind of like preventing Adobe's Flash on iPhone and iPad and by that preventing a lot of applications from these platforms users, I would say. Could people prefer Google's and other vendors that do support Flash?

1985 (4:40 in the movie)  - Apples sales decline, due to lack of software availability on it. Hmm… interesting.

(4:58 in the movie)  - The market started to realize that maybe the Apple computer were more attractive than the IBM's, but the IBM computers support the things the market wanted to do - Need I say more?

(5:35 in the movie)  - Jobs blames John Scully for Apple failure. Sells all his shares and leaves the company - Sounds a bit childish to me, but hey… that's the guy.

Can history repeat itself? I will let you decide...
Cheers.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Steve Jobs arrogance is indeed a bit annoying, but when you are such a legend you're allowed to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Flashmattic said...

I don't think that anyone is entitled for such arrogance.

Unknown said...

very interesting

Flashmattic said...

Cheers :)