The More Things Change......

Steve Jobs on Microsoft (Extended Version)


I found this little clip on YouTube the other day, when I was testing the blogging link on that site.

Jobs' accusation of Microsoft's lack of innovative ideas and being cultural philistines doesn't seem to have changed in the years since this interview occurred.

The video clip doesn't have a date, but I'm guessing, by Jobs' look and his references, that it is sometime in the early-mid 1990s.

What I find ironic is that this clip would work today, only for the iPod vs. Microsoft's latest Apple knock-off, the imminent Zune digital music player.

True, Apple stole its Mac OS from Xerox. But what they did with it was inspired and beautiful, if expensive and lacking in troubleshooting capability. Microsoft began its tradition of workmanlike copying of Apple with its Windows OS.

Now, we have the same companies, and the same behaviors, except that this time Apple actually created the digital music download-playing systems itself.

And, of course, this time, the market shares are reversed, and probably will stay that way.

In discussing this with my partner the other day over lunch, I opined that Jobs has already left music playing behind, and is now heading for the higher, virgin ground of digital video content downloading and playing. By the time Microsoft and RealNetworks catch up, Apple will probably have captured the dominant market position, and a proprietary storage method, again.

It's just so eerie that this would all be playing out once more, with the same two companies, and same two leaders, so many years later......