You are doing this out of irony, right? Just to stress this point clear:

“At the time however, the dominant leaders of the day often failed to recognize the significance of all of these events, and in many cases, so did the mainstream tech media”

You’ve written much about the moves, techniques and technologies Microsoft has tried to maintain or enlarge their monopoly hold on customers in the marketplace. Here they go again with a bait-and-switch ploy to lock customers into their products – this time in the “Cloud Computing” paradigm. Of course they will offer the OS for free since you’ll have to pay a subscription or fee to get access, information and applications via Microsoft servers. Why they will even keep YOUR data for you on THEIR servers. How generous!

Pundits think this is the next disruptive technology leading to cheaper and better computing. Of course, magnificent and GENEROUS Microsoft is going to be offering a gateway to their services via a “FREE” operating system. Want to take bets on whose services are preferred/allowed/compatible within the Azure OS?

The cloud may offer a lower cost of entry to customers by using simple, basic, inexpensive client terminals but only if your usage is low or the cost model is reasonable. Apple is already moving that direction with the iPhone/iPod Touch and MoblieMe apps. Google is working on it as well with the Android and Google apps. As long as the technology uses standards-based interfaces and the business model supports competitive markets with fee for service as well as advertising supported services, we have hope it will be reasonably priced.

I don’t believe Microsoft will be able to keep their monopoly with customers in the cloud computing architecture. At least I hope they don’t.

Vista is not being hugely adopted by enterprises is not a problem to developers. Businesses are still using Windows XP and Windows Server 2008 and Linux. Developers are still developing with Java and .NET.

In the consumer space, netbooks loaded with WindowsXP and Linux are selling well. ASUS said about 70% are Windows. Estimated 2009 netbook market is about 20 million units. So unless Apple enters the low profit netbook market, netbook sales have matched or overtaken Mac sales.

In the PC market, about 300 million are sold every year. Macs account for about 10-20 million. So exactly how is Mac OS X a disruption?

In the mobile space, iPhone does look like a new opportunity for developers. But has it disrupted development for Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm or Android? I would say no. In fact, iPhone probably has probably brought more interest to all the platforms.

Android is a more compelling developer platform than the iPhone. Android uses the Java language and there are a lot of Java programmers. Google’s two founders have a programming background just like Bill Gates. All three of them understand developers and technologies. Steve Jobs of Apple has a business background and seems to not really understand developers. The Mac developer community needs improving. Searching the web, the Linux developer community seems to be larger than the Mac development community.

[Ha, dear Beanie@Juno(!) Surely even you can see the irony in blowing off Apple by citing market share numbers while grandstanding for Android, a platform that hasn't even yet materialized in terms of real sales, no? Also, I'm not sure you have grasped the meaning of "disruption." It does not mean "acquiring a monopoly."]

If I have understood the comments, Apple was set to dominate the command-line computing industry but instead “dropped the ball” by going after graphical interface ………..

As a designer, the words “some day every computer will work this way” echo in my ears. As creative professionals, we are taught that we have a “duty to innovate”.

In my own field, having some “some day everything will work this way …. ” epiphany makes me impatient with having to continue to work with the old people and the old ways, but I know that often I have to put up with them to make the new ideas succeed. So I can sympathise with Steve Jobs and his ability to identify them and set Apple apart from its competitors.

Just add in one more phrase: “I felt like such a dope” – Jobs explaining the one year delay in developing the iPod, once it became obvious that PC’s and iMacs were being used for music. A failure in the “duty to innovate” that he had missed which suddenly became so clear, to Steve and to Apple, but that no-one else noticed at the time and which allowed Apple to create its magic iPod halo …………..

the development of an inexpensive (relatively) PC/GUI in the 80’s, the cell phone, and the Internet in 90’s were all three Mega. each changed the world, permanently. Windows 95 on the other hand was Small in such a scale, mainly providing a practically needed global standard for about a decade, which now no longer really matters. it was merely a market disruption, not a technological or social one.

then there are the “evolutions.” the “digital revolution” of digitizing everything has slowly spread to just about everything imaginable by now, but starting – when? the 1960’s? it was Uber-Mega. and the “unifying” evolution of melding all those disruptions of the PC, the internet, and phone – plus an older Mega-disruption, television – plus your smart house, car, and anything else into a seamless personal network for each of us individually is still very much in process and not yet finished.

and that’s what the current market is dealing with right now. the iPhone was another Small disruption, a breakthrough in one particular aspect of this. MS is still looking to create an “everything” package – Azure, Windows Live, etc. etc. – which, if they pulled it truly off, would be quite a feat and disruptive. Google seems to have a version of its own in mind. and don’t underestimate AT&T’s U-Verse (an apt name indeed), which RDM overlooks pretty much.

And Apple? whatever AppleTV and MobileMe need to be to complete such an “everything” package, they ain’t there yet. we’ll see in 2009 ….

Ouch, sad but true.

@luisd & Berend… good responses to a great article. I might add – as a researcher in the physical sciences -, re. the railway analogy, that nearly the whole basic science of Thermodynamics as we know it today developed from attempts in England and France to analyze and improve the efficiency of the steam engine… Science inspired and driven by commercial technology as per the thesis of this article.

We seem to arrive at the good products by default, and only after wasting time and money on rubbish.
Marketing is the great disrupting force.

Perhaps thats the nature of human learning – we dont listen to Wise men, we have to forge our own path, only to end back where we started.
Thats not a bad thing – where would we be without the excitement of beating the evil Windows empire?
In a way, if its not something that your life depends on, the computer wars are like a good novel.

I remember when Microsoft brought out Microsoft Works on DOS – it was exactly what I needed to run a small business in 1989 or so.
Once I had figured it out, DOS seemed fine. I had come from the COBOL world, so DOS was simple and cool.
When Windows appeared, I was disgusted, and wanted the simplicity of numbers and lines on the screen, with solid, professional-looking dull print-out – reminder letters, databases of customers. Very dry.

(Up here in Vancouver, I had never come across an Apple machine, except for one time when a friend came up from LA with a portable in 1987 or so. I only remember the Trash Can and thinking how clever that was.)

The ‘Business World’ demanded this kind of tough dry approach, and still frowns on frivolity. DOS was perfect for men (mostly men) who were ONLY interested in making money, usually at the expense of their personal lives and health.

Its obvious (but maybe only to me!) that the Microsoft crowd and their ugly haircuts, male tough-guy values, 1950’s business suits, semi-military behaviour, the shackling of women to the kitchen sink, and other ‘Business Guy’ values are what stopped Apple from doing well, and that Sculley and Jean L-G wanted to take Apple down that road in some fashion.

Bottom line: The trash can on the Apple screen put off ‘business guys’ because it was whimsical and intuitive, representing everything they hated and feared.

I loved the Trash Can, eventually recalled it, subconsciously went searching for it, and never used Win or DOS again.

You are a Windows guy or you are an Apple person – it seems to come down to that, on a subliminal level.