No, Windows and IBM made smart moves in the 80s, while APPLE decided to stick to proprietary hardware and
No one debates that the GUI is a bad invention.. of course Apple didn't invent it XEROX did... and then didn't know what to do with it, and Apple ran with it.
Had apple not been so short sighted as to be worrying about the commodity (hardware) they might have remained a real player, instead of a 5%er.
They are finally 20 years later making the move to correct some of their 20 years of its our way or no way nonsense.
As to innovation, you seriously aren't implying that a 2 button mouse is an innovation in the year 2005 are you? Or that taking an existing OS and an opensource solution such as KVM and the like and proprietarizing them are huge innovations are you?
Don't get me wrong, I"m glad someone finally put the effort into putting a solid graphical front end onto UNIX, but its not like they crossed some great and new technological devide.
Apples primary market driver is "COOL".... more than major tech innovation. And that's nice... I am glad they are doing things like the MINI.. something that the PC market should have done a LONG time ago... I'm glad they're out there in the game.... but sizzle only takes you so far.
Apple may, now that its going onto intel hardware, finally have a shot at being a player in the home PC market, provided they don't much it up.... Which it looks like they are doing...
You let your OS be installed on any INTEL box, and you might see Apple take market share for MS.... but since they are ensuring that only Apple hardware will install the new intall OS... it looks like they are going to cut off their noses once again.
No, Windows and IBM made smart moves in the 80s, while APPLE decided to stick to proprietary hardware. . .
And exactly what smart move did IBM make and what is IBM's market share of personal computers today???
IBM did not suddenly, in a "smart" business decision, decide to open its architecture to anybody and everybody... in fact, they did everything they could through lawsuits, contracts, and secrecy to prevent it. But the cat was already out of the bag when the first IBM PC was shipped made of off the shelf parts, including the OS, provided by third party vendors. The only thing that IBM truly had total rights to was the BIOS... and that was reverse engineered in less than two years.
Did Apple make some bad decisions? You bet. They tried to be all things to their customers... going proprietary on things that did not need to be proprietary. However, for certain applications it made sense to provide the computer, software, monitor, and printer - Apple could control the quality and assure that, from start to finish, all the hardware worked together to provide quality WYSIWYG output. As a result, Apple siezed the publishing industry and kept it for many years.
As to innovation, you seriously aren't implying that a 2 button mouse is an innovation in the year 2005 are you? Or that taking an existing OS and an opensource solution such as KVM and the like and proprietarizing them are huge innovations are you?
As to innovation, a two button mouse is not an innovation in 2005. But the mouse under question here with its scroll BALL that allows scrolling in 360º directions, not just up and down, or left and right, is an innovation. Almost ALL innovation is the combining of existing technologies in new, useful ways. By that definition, OSX meets the requirement.