In 1997 as he resumed the helm at Apple Steve Jobs told a packed MacWorld audience that “We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.”. Minutes prior to that statement Bill Gates, the Microsoft CEO, had appeared on the big-screen behind Jobs and confirmed Microsoft’s commitment to the Mac platform. That moment has always reminded me of the scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” when Llando leads Han, Leia and Chewbacca to the dining hall and opens the door to reveal Darth Vader. The game, it would seem was up.
If you look at Apple in the 1990s the game was most definitely almost up. A series of poor choices and the milking of the ageing Macintosh line for all the profits that could be wrung out of it by creating a bewildering array of models had left the company that invented the personal computer battered and torn. By 1997 Windows was the dominant computer platform and Apple was bleeding money. While not yet ready to die (Apple still had big cash reserves – a fact not often remembered in most discussions of this type) Apple was mortally wounded. Steve Jobs could see that it was necessary to embrace the one-time enemy as a friend.
Few people could foresee what would happen over the next decade. Jobs took a broom to Apple’s complex product line-up. He killed the ill-judged introduction of Mac clones that had served only to weaken Apple further. He killed the Newton and the eMate. Under Jobs Apple released the iMac whose colourful exterior and quirky lack of a floppy-drive sent ripples through the beige PC industry. Apple began to become cool. The sharks still circled, but the blood was no longer in the water.
In the years that followed Apple released hit, after hit: the iBook; the Titanium PowerBook; OS X; the iPod; Intel Macs; and the iPhone. The company’s profitability grew and grew and its ability to enter market segments and reinvent them in its own image has become legendary in the tech world and beyond. While still widely criticised Apple has time and again silenced its naysayers with success.
The Apple of 2010 is very different to that of 1997. Apple has once again become master of its own fate, it is lean, it moves quickly and seems unstoppable. Mac sales are up, iPod sales are phenomenal and the iPhone is widely regarded as the benchmark for mobile devices. And it turns out that the capitulation wasn’t the end of the war. Steve Jobs wasn’t crazy. Apple rolled over, but it was playing possum. The war was just beginning.
The battle for the desktop has waged since Microsoft first released Windows. In the 1990s they completely dominated the desktop operating system market and sucked all of the air out of the room. Apple, although still the possessor of the superior platform, was in a dead end with proprietary software and an operating system that was on its last legs. With OS X Apple produced a desktop operating system that easily made Windows XP look old, ill designed and insecure. While Microsoft was releasing service packs Apple was refining OS X and making it better and better. While Microsoft stood still Apple innovated its way to the best desktop OS in the world. People began to take notice and the battle was once again joined. Microsoft rushed to released Windows Vista, but failed miserably both in the timing of its delivery and the quality of its product.
Apple was also taking on all-comers with the iPod. The combination of iTunes software, the iTunes store and the iPod was an ecosystem that gained immediate support from customers cut off from illegal downloads through Napster and, though replicated since, has found no real competition. Apple has sold 250 million iPods since 2001 and billions of songs. Apple not only created a knock-out music player they saved the music industry. Instead of resting on their laurels, however, Apple kept innovating and releasing new models. Microsoft, the clumsy giant, turned its attention to the iTunes/iPod threat too slowly and by the time it released the rebadged Toshiba player it called the Zune had lost that battle. Apple had delivered a hammer blow. Microsoft is a strong and resilient company with massive revenue and profits. It is able to take this sort of punishment.
With the iPhone Apple took on Microsoft once more and delivered a crushing blow to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (a platform with little in common with its desktop name-sake). Apple brought new and powerful enemies into the fray with this move. Suddenly Apple turned to Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericson, RIM, LG, Samsung and Palm who had been standing around bemusedly watching the fight between Apple’s David and Microsoft’s Goliath, looked them into the eye and, like a scene from a martial arts film, beckoned them into the fight. The iPhone proved such a powerful threat that the mobile companies saw that they too needed a touch phone. Apple then brought its app store for the iPhone into play along with the iPod touch. A round-house kick that knocked the dazed handset makers flying into last year.
Not content with stirring up the hornets-nest of mobile hand set makers while still in mortal combat with its oldest foe Apple has recently decided to take on Amazon by releasing the iPad. The iPad is seeking to destroy Amazons lead on eBook readers. It could be argued that Amazon started it by creating a music store, but Apple have definitely poked them in the eye. The iPad has also brought one of Apple’s oldest frenemies into the ring – Adobe. Already sore that Apple hasn’t allowed Flash onto the iPhone or iPod touch the release of a Flash-free iPad has made Adobe mad and it has charged at Apple with claims that users won’t buy an iPad unless they can view Flash web pages.
It isn’t just Adobe and Amazon who Apple have brought into the fight either. Google and Apple had been joined in a fight against a common enemy in Microsoft, but the relationship has become quite strained recently as Google released the Android mobile phone platform and then their own Nexus One handset. With the iPad Apple are challenging Google’s Chrome OS to a fight to the death. Chome is intended for netbooks and Apple has them in its sights.
So we see a resurgent Apple at war with Microsoft, mobile handset makers, Google, Adobe and Amazon. Apple is Bruce Lee – I think we know how this is going to end.
Interesting read, Andrew. There’s a part of me that craves an iPad now – the part of me that says things like “ooh, shiny” – though I believe we’ll be a couple of models/firmware upgrades down the line before it’s as good as anyone wants it to be. Just a thought, though. Surely once you’re Bruce Lee, you no longer get to be David in the David and Goliath analogy? Have Apple become big enough yet that we should hate them for being a nasty big corporation?
Sure you can be Bruce Lee and David – both small against a giant foe. Though I mustn’t mix metaphors. I see Microsoft as the Greem Yamo if you ever played the Spectrum/C64 version of Bruce Lee.
A company’s size oughtn’t determine whether we love/hate it, rather it is how it behaves. Microsoft’s capacity for imitation and its sharp practices against competitors (whither Netscape) put it in the role of the bad guy almost every time. Apple are not perfect but they are yet to sink to a level that would make me question their fundamental morality as a company.