Marketing. Apple failed. IBM and Bill Gates succeeded with their customization of CP/M which they bought from some small outfit in Seattle. IBM put MS-DOS into their Personal Computer (PC). The key to MS's success then was licensing to anybody who wanted to make and sell PC compatible machines.
Apple succeeded in taking some MMI (man machine interface) concepts, more recently called HCI (human computer interface), from Xerox to build its innovative and successful Macintosh system. Apple did not license a Macintosh system to compatible hardware manufacturers until way too late. In the meantime, MS stole Apple's concepts to build Windows around the creaky DOS. Apple failed to gain fairness and redress in the courts.
Where rubber met the road, or where microcomputers met the desk, the real dynamic was that IBM and compatible manufacturers sold their products cheaply, and some were indeed cheap in more ways than one. Apple made do with selling quality products at higher and less competitive prices. The masses knew little difference except price.
-- Al Poulin
"Brian Mahoney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
While I'm at it, why didn't Apple ever become a threat to the world in the
same way Microsoft did? If they had both ends of the stick, hardware and
software, why didn't or why doesn't everyone think they are a threat to
whatever it is people think Microsoft is a threat to? Did they somehow
maintain a polite boutique image or is there something else that I'm not
seeing. Is it simply that they dominate their own line of products and don't
threaten anyone else's creations? Coke has Pepsi, McDonalds has Burger
King/Wendys etc. but Microsoft has never had a hardware line, save for their
current leap into wireless products, while Apple has always had both
hardware and software and a complete monopoly (arguable). Just some food for
thought on a Friday night without hockey. (Canada here.)
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