Man for the Job

So Steve Jobs died last night for those who might live under a rock. I say that with a twinge of sarcasm because there isnt really anywhere online you can look at today without some mention or homage to the man. Now some may think that comes from a bit of jealousy, and to be perfectly honest, perhaps a little but truthfully I don’t think so. Even still, I think the man has been over-hyped in his accomplishments and endeavors in his life. Don’t misunderstand what I say by that in thinking I believe him to be a nobody, but there are many others who go through life accomplishing much more important and impacting things than he did and never get any worthwhile credit.

I tweeted last night that I thought perhaps maybe now Apple would stop doing everything in its power to inflict lawsuits on anyone who comes along with an idea potentially better than theirs or a way to improve upon what they have created, or even an idea they haven’t come up with themselves. Thats all that seems to be going on these days and sadly Apple is at the forefront of most of the technology lawsuits. I’ve watched the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s be a period of innovation and creation of technology and advancement like no other to the 2000′s be more of a “who can we sue for more money and to stop from being a worthwhile competitor?” era. I can’t say that Apple started it, because it didn’t, honestly the process was pretty much started by SCO a few years back and its lawsuit against IBM and Linux (read more here). That kind of set the precedent for all that has come since and its really disgusting and sad all at once.

The guy who ran SCO at the time was renowned for basically inventing nothing but making millions off intellectual property rights. Basically buying the rights to a technology or patented invention and then licensing it out to people and suing anyone who didnt pay his price or who made a similar invention or idea or competitive one. Suddenly larger corporations saw in this bold move an idea of “hey, we can stifle competition this way” in the sense that a small newly formed company with an idea or product will more likely cave to the pressure of a big business icon’s threat of legal action than go to market and compete. It was certainly a cheaper way to get rid of competition if you didnt have the bankroll Microsoft did and could just buy your competition like they did.

Apple seems to have taken cues from that and basically launched a campaign of lawsuits on companies with like minded technology, better technology, or competitive technology and just gone crazy. They’ve done more in the last 10 years to ruin innovation than innovate themselves. What happened to the company who was all about changing the rules of technology back in the day? Remember this commercial?

Apple went from the woman with the hammer, to the guy on the screen in just a decade. Unfortunately because of this, other companies have followed suit and now its a lawyers wet dream out there in the technology landscape. Just have a look at this:

Credit: www.informationisbeautiful.net

At any rate, I watched Apple grow, fall, and grow again in my lifetime thus far into what it is today and almost a blip on the radar screen in the early 90′s and late 80′s because of poor business decisions. Some attribute Apple’s climb to the top again to Steve Jobs’ return, and I think that part of the credit is due to that yes, but for the most part Apple gambled on a new technology at the right time and used cultivated contacts in media to push that idea along and thats what turned it around. That technology being MP3′s and downloadable music of course and basically being the first to create and market a device similar to a Sony Walkman that would allow you to take those songs with you. Then furthering it to the iTunes store in allowing people to legally buy music for cheap using the contacts Apple had garnered in the entertainment industry over its existence and with Steve’s hookups through Pixar which he also helped to found and owned. Again, good and smart business decisions, but hardly “revolutionary”, more or less in the right place at the right time to capitalize on something that was free and widespread on the internet already.

Using that momentum from the iPod and iTunes, they redid their product line and set out to make basically what I consider overpriced works of art they call computers and people foolishly buy them with the notion they are “hip” “with it” or “cool” for owning one when they could have a PC that is just as good if not better but doesnt necessarily look as sleek on a desk with a light up Apple logo. Again, not revolutionary, but a move to cater to egos in my view of people will pay a premium for something unique, fashionable and what they believe will set them apart. My grandfather used to say when I was a kid about such things:

“If you could bottle farts and sell it as a perfume to rich people, people would buy it.”

I believe that crude but rather poignant description of fashion and trends applies to how Apple came to success. Same applies to the iPhone, smart phones were not invented by Apple, yet some people honestly are ignorant enough to believe that true. Microsoft had been marketing Windows Smartphones for years prior as did Palm, but they cost a small fortune at the time and were rather crude in what they could do. Again, enter Apple with an eye for catching technology trends and re-did the iPod in a phone to basically encompass what people carry with them most in one device instead of 2. “I can have my music and my phone with me wherever I go and only carry one item!”.

These are all key business moves at the right time done the right way to capitalize on already existing technology. All they did was put their own Apple spin on them, market it well, and made money. Lets face it, Apple marketers are almost as good as Volkswagen marketers. They can sell a Ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves as David Spade would say in Tommy Boy. These days thats all you need sadly, people with disposable income, and even those without will buy anything if you can make it look cool and make it appear as though they would be less cool not having one.

So I dont relish in the fact that Steve Jobs is dead. A life lost, especially to cancer is sad regardless who it is. My irritability over this saturation on the net and elsewhere about his death is due to him being given too much credit for what he’s done. Steve Jobs did not invent the personal computer, he marketed it. Woz built them, Jobs sold them. He had an uncanny mind for what people would buy and what was good business sense, although the tradeoff was he was a legendary micro manager. So if we are going to honor the memory of Steve Jobs, lets credit him for what he is and not what he isnt or didnt do. He was a fantastic businessman who changed the face of technology business in the modern era. Some say for good, some say for the worse, and I have to say its a bit of both in my opinion.

Steve Jobs did not invent the smartphone, he didnt invent the personal computer, he didnt even invent MP3′s or MP3 players. He was a great thinker in terms of sales who took those already existing ideas and made a way to profit off them unlike others had thought to do before him. Did he improve upon those ideas some? Yes, but he alone did not, the faceless engineers in his employ did most of that. Even still, that is something respectable to credit him for.