Actually, in a sense, he is correct, and Apple would be the first to agree with him. The fact is that Apple and Microsoft have a symbiotic relationship. Apple's (per Jobs') philosophy is to be the elite, the cream of the crop, the avant-garde, and of course, with a price to match. For that to be possible, you need to have a baseline for Apple to be superior to. Microsoft supplies that baseline--the klunky, clumsy, oafish competitor who tends to the unwashed multitude with "good enough" utility and low prices. To put it succinctly, Apple's well-being depends on a Microsoft, just as Microsoft's aspiration (to emulate) depends on an Apple. Apple will never overtake Microsoft in market share, because that would mean the end of Apple's superiority. You cannot be superior when you are in the majority.
The equilibrium has served well enough when the computing universe has only APL and MSFT. Now that mobile computing is getting more interest, Google with its Android will make things more interesting.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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Actually, in a sense, he is correct, and Apple would be the first to agree with him. The fact is that Apple and Microsoft have a symbiotic relationship. Apple's (per Jobs') philosophy is to be the elite, the cream of the crop, the avant-garde, and of course, with a price to match. For that to be possible, you need to have a baseline for Apple to be superior to. Microsoft supplies that baseline--the klunky, clumsy, oafish competitor who tends to the unwashed multitude with "good enough" utility and low prices. To put it succinctly, Apple's well-being depends on a Microsoft, just as Microsoft's aspiration (to emulate) depends on an Apple. Apple will never overtake Microsoft in market share, because that would mean the end of Apple's superiority. You cannot be superior when you are in the majority.
The equilibrium has served well enough when the computing universe has only APL and MSFT. Now that mobile computing is getting more interest, Google with its Android will make things more interesting.