Where Bill Gates bests Steve Jobs, and always has, is in his willingness to build ecosystems.
Windows is an ecosystem. Microsoft is the biggest fish in that ecosystem. Since 1995, Windows has been eating the other fish in that ecosystem, but fish do that. It's still an ecosystem.
Apple has never been comfortable with living in an ecosystem. Apple builds products, not ecosystems. There were never any second-source Macintosh hardware producers with Jobs in charge, and they were all killed off when he returned.
You will never see Steve Jobs, or any of his lieutenants, jumping around a stage yelling "developers, developers, developers, developers." It's not going to happen.
But if it did, if Jobs ever learned to share, imagine the threat he'd be then?
Here's an example of how he can.
Unleash the iPod developers.
There are already tons of great applications for the iPod that Apple never thought of. Map application, comics applications, WiFi applications. Someone even ran Linux on the thing.
Apple's general attitude toward all this ranges from indifference to contempt.
This is stupid. Jobs seems to think that if he doesn't invent it, it doesn't exist, or shouldn't exist in his space. This is also stupid.
A monoculture is not an ecosystem. A vibrant ecosystem consists of many different species, of different types, living in a variety of niches.
Jobs' idea of ecology is a cornfield. It doesn't work in nature, and it doesn't work in technology.
He's asking to get beat. Again.
The best product doesn't win in the long run. In technology, the best ecosystem wins. Markets evolve. Think of developers as evolution in action.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. James Corbett on August 23, 2005 07:36 AM writes...
Great point Dana but do I detect a change in attitude recently especially with the way that Apple have embraced podcasting?
Permalink to Comment2. James Ashberry on August 23, 2005 08:45 AM writes...
Oh dear.
Please explain, Dana, how the Mac world is not an eco-system within itself?
Second-source Mac producers is what nearly killed Apple last time round because exactly the same thing happened with PCs - cheaply made, poorly built machines surfaced, diluted Apple's hardware market share and allowed a spate of bad hardware to flood the market.
You're missing the point entirely. Apple is a hardware AND software manufacturer. Killing one will handicap the other. Allow other people to make hardware and lose the tight integration between OS and hardware - surely Windows is a living breathing example of what happens when you do this? One of the biggest advantages is the integration and quality control.
The ecosystem might make you big. It might make you dominate. But it makes your product crappy. I don't blame Jobs - I'd want to keep it in house too. Who wants a bunch of Japanese guys building cheap boxes to run the OS poorly on? Who wants laptops that fall apart? Who wants iPods that are made by Zen or Creative? No one innovates like Apple. Perhaps if they did, they'd be allowed to sell Mac enabled products. Like Motorola with the iTunes phone.
Some people just don't get it. Unfortunately, Dana, you're one of them.
Permalink to Comment3. Dave on August 23, 2005 10:28 AM writes...
Not invented here? Then why did Apple start using USB in 1997, despite the fact it was an Intel technology, and did it better than PC manufacturers?
Permalink to Comment4. John on August 23, 2005 10:32 AM writes...
There is an ecosystem for the iPod. It's the largest ecosystem for any MP3 or digital audio player by far. But it's not software and it's not iPod clones.
And there is an ecosystem for the Mac. It's both hardware and software, but it's not Mac clones.
You've painted with a broad brush (echoing some other blogs that have visited this already) instead of doing the work to more carefully define your ecosystem. You've also not considered other possibly more crucial factors that led to the rise of Windows (and despite your argument, the rise of iPod).
You need to begin by understanding what is the "core system" around which the ecosystem will be built and why that should be so. If your core is too small, you could wind up with a messy and weak foundation that is hampered by integration and usability issues. If your core is too big, you've unnecessarily cut off innovation from others.
Why is Apple wrong in defining their core (Mac and iPod) the way they have?
Permalink to Comment5. stephen besedick on August 23, 2005 11:04 AM writes...
. . . and the proliferation of Windows is considered an ecosystem? Seems to me that this scenario is the same animal with different stripes . . .
Permalink to Comment6. Dogger on August 23, 2005 11:09 AM writes...
When it comes to the Mac vs. Microsoft, why is hardware the only measuring stick of the health of an ecosystem? This makes no sense. A set of commodity manufacturers essentially duplicating the same functionality but racing for the floor when it comes to price is not the classic model of an ecosystem. The software world is a much better model (key word here is diversity) and obviously the Mac has a very healthy community of developers as does Windows. Ecology is a bogus argument when it comes to differentiating them. For example, how does open source software rate against normal single company application development on your ecosystem scale? Do you realise how many more OS X apps are built on open source foundations than Windows apps. A *lot* more.
Feh. If you wanted to make an argument about the iPod, with reference to Mac/Windows, you built it on a house of cards.
DB.
Permalink to Comment7. Tom Barta on August 23, 2005 11:18 AM writes...
Windows isn't an ecosystem; it's the Ebola virus.
"Ecosystem" implies balance. The IT world is far from balanced; it is out of kilter and sick. Dinosaurs rule the earth.
Permalink to Comment8. Jeff Mincey on August 23, 2005 11:56 AM writes...
Windows is an eco-system while in contrast presumably OS X is not? Please advise as to whether you labor under the impression that Apple invented the following components of OS X:
Apache
sendmail
Postfix
PHP
MySQL
SSH
telnet
FTP
Python
Java
In contrast, Windows includes the Microsoft-proprietary IIS, Exchange, C#, .Net, etc.
You might want to rethink your thesis.
Permalink to Comment9. Don on August 23, 2005 12:24 PM writes...
You forgot to mention some other areas where Bill Gates is obviously superior to Steve Jobs:
Permalink to Comment1) Producing products that he admitted aren't very good, but are just good enough.
2) Stealing products from other companies
3) Using monopolistic tactics to destroy superior competition
4) Announcing products with an amazing array of features to counter competition, but then producing products that don't have the features and are inferior to the competition which is now out of business due to the monopoly.
5) The use of FUD
6) The use of bribes (free trips, hardware, software, etc.) to buy off industry pundits
10. Ken McKee on August 23, 2005 12:32 PM writes...
Take a look at the origins of Mac OS X. Jobs wanted to bring a powerful object oriented operating system and GUI to desktop computers. For an object oriented language he added Objective-C to the Free Software Foundations GCC compiler. (Thanks to that and the GNUstep project, I can develop applications on Mac OS X and deploy them on Linux and Windows). He worked with Adobe to create Display Postscript for NeXTSTEP. Adobe's recalcitrance in licensing Display Postscript for Mac OS X led to Apple's creation of "display pdf" know as Quartz. You can find examples of Python programs to manipulate PDF in Mac OS X. (Apple's embrace of PDF is an incredibly powerful concept lost on most everyone, including Adobe and Microsoft). Jobs licensed BSD Unix because it was suitable; he found no reason to invent the base OS. Apple no longer licenses BSD, but instead works with the FreeBSD community. Much of Mac OS X is open source, including Open Directory from Mac OS X Server. Mac OS X Server is a splendid example of Apple's place in an ecosystem; add samba to Jeff Mincey's list.
Permalink to Comment11. Peter on August 23, 2005 12:56 PM writes...
Well, since you're talking about the iPod and not the Mac, I'll avoid all the obvious Mac points.
Apple's iPod is a very open hardware device. Consider the various add-ons to the iPod. I can buy an iPod and attach it to my car via ice>Link. I can turn it into a boom-box via iN Motion. I can turn it into a personal recorder via TuneTalk. And there are a bunch of other ones.
So I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that Apple is somehow not letting iPod developers explore.
Permalink to Comment12. Charles Bouldin on August 23, 2005 03:16 PM writes...
"You will never see Steve Jobs, or any of his lieutenants, jumping around a stage yelling "developers, developers, developers, developers." It's not going to happen."
No, thank goodness, Jobs will never make an ass of himself like that.
However, Apple GIVES AWAY a free set of developer tools (Xcode) that allows any Mac user to become a developer. On this score, I think Apple gets it.
Both Apple and MS want (read: insist) that you use their OS if you want to play in their ecosystem, but Apple is ahead on the use of open standards, which are the ultimate in expanding the size of the software universe. MS wants you to use DirectX, Exchange, various proprietary web standards, a proprietary (and constantly changing) file format for office documents. Apple uses standard web constructs, IMAP, OpenGL, pdf. That's a situation that invites growth and participation rather than the "embrace, extend, pollute, control" process that MS has made famous in their pretense of using standards.
Permalink to Comment13. James Bailey on August 23, 2005 05:08 PM writes...
You need to explain the proliferation of iPod accessories then. Also, you need to explain this:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/color/accessories.html#madeforipod
To quote, "“Made for iPod” means that an electronic accessory has been designed specifically to connect to iPod and has been certified by the developer to meet Apple performance standards."
Hmm, I think you might be mistaken.
Permalink to Comment14. MacBuddy on August 23, 2005 05:33 PM writes...
You once characterized Apple as being 'tetchy'.
This is yet another display of your unwavering predilection to hate anything 'Apple'.
As I said before Apple isn't perfect, but I truly wish you would stop your monthy installments of making up reasons to justify your 'feelings'.
As always, your posits are easy to refute.
Permalink to Comment15. Zaxxon on August 23, 2005 06:08 PM writes...
What a load of rearshed myths about Apple...
It's just so funny when analysts try to apply thing that applied to the Macintosh 15 years ago to the iPod, which is a completely different beast in a much different context.
Fortunately, the iPod won't become a Wintel PC, with it's thousands of badly written sharewares and freewares.
Permalink to Comment16. PXLated on August 23, 2005 06:43 PM writes...
Well Dana, are you wishing you'd thought a little more before posting this article :-)
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