demagogue on 27/8/2011 at 03:03
Well being closed has served the company well... And I can objectively admire Jobs for getting fired from his own company he founded and then managing to reinvent himself with Sun or wherever it was, scrap back even more assertive, and pulling off one marketing coup after another. And if people are happy to shell out money for Apple stuff and they're happy with it, more power to them.
I don't say people like that are "evil" or even dodgy, just that he was successful, a lot of people (not me) liked Apple stuff under his watch -- if I were a shareholder I'd be satisfied; he did the job he was hired to do well -- but Apple's way of doing things has been more or less antithetical to what I personally value in computers & gizmos for a while now, mostly in being closed & not letting you just do X when you want to X. I still use my iTouch (given to me as a present) for the Japanese flashcards and a few games and playlists for commutes... But it's nothing I'd get myself and I use my netbook a lot more.
It is funny how I don't feel as negative about Microsoft as I did in the past -- there's still things that annoy me a lot with Windows, but it's open & I feel in control, and even the things that were supposed to be dodgy (bundling with IE, changing policies with Office & Word), haven't been a problem because I just use open programs anyway ... that and Bill Gates has his whole philanthropist role now, which not every rich person does.
Oh well, godspeed Steve Jobs. The history books will remember you, which is a lot more than you can say even about most CEOs.
Matthew on 27/8/2011 at 12:55
It was NeXT, demagogue; which Apple later bought out in order to use (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP) NeXTSTEP as the basis for OS X and in the process got Jobs back too. Or possibly vice versa.
