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It is true that it took Apple, unencumbered by the baggage of the record labels, to create a legal market for music downloads, and I don’t begrudge the company its success. But you could also say that it took Microsoft to create a mass market for personal computers, and its tactics bought the company a decade of damaging litigation and a reputation as a ham-handed monopolist.
When, as a reporter, I covered Microsoft in the 1990s, I always felt that Bill Gates’ arrogance had everything to do with the company’s legal problems. Gates and Microsoft insisted on extremely aggressive business practices, and that attitude helped turn a lot of people against them. While the anti-trust case ultimately resulted in only limited sanctions, it had all kinds of negative effects that a more humble company might have avoided.
Apple, in those years, was a has-been in the tech business, a bumbling firm that couldn’t figure out how to capitalise on its technological strengths. Jobs, for his part, trying to prove that his early success wasn’t a fluke, was relentlessly ingratiating in his efforts to make a go of Next Computer. (I remember a cheery unsolicited phone call at home from him one morning: “Hey Jonathan. It’s Steve. Steve Jobs.”) Apple loyalists, like any proper cult followers, could still be counted on to show up and cheer at MacWorld, and to hammer any journalists who weren’t sufficiently deferential to the Macintosh. Apple was the anti-Microsoft, and that was enough to make some people proud.
Today the cult still shows up at MacWorld, but it’s a little odd to see such feverish loyalty to a company that registered $2 billion in profits last year and brazenly pursues strategies that keep its customers dependent on its very expensive gear. While still a lot smaller than Microsoft, Apple is extraordinarily well-positioned to capitalise on the transition to digital media, and its market power is growing every day. Why is critical scrutiny so lacking?
Jobs is at least the equal to Gates when it comes to holding a high opinion of himself, though he is a lot more charming. Maybe that’s an important difference. But frankly, I doubt it. Jobs might be able to steamroll even the Securities and Exchange Commission for now, but when you think you are above the law – or even above the laws of business – you eventually get taken down a peg. You read it here first.
Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a new type of regional news and information service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard
