Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates released the following statement on Wednesday’s death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who was 56:
I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.
Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
He started out in life without much of anything. He was adopted. After high school, he attended a small college in Oregon for one semester before dropping out.
Job taught himself about electronics and got a job at Atari.
Jobs and two other people founded Apple in their garage in 1976.
Even though Apple had some minor success, Apple was eventually beat to a pulp in the PC market by Microsoft.
Jobs got booted out of Apple by a guy he hired.
Jobs didn't give up. He founded Next Computers and then Pixar.
Jobs would up back at Apple and sold them Next and used the Next operating system for the next versions of the Mac.
Then Jobs completely disrupted the music business with the iPod and iTunes. In the process, he made the record labels largely irrelevant.
Then he leveraged that success to create the coolest smartphone in the world, and then the world's first commercially successful tablet computer.
Jobs is the kind of American hero that the lunatic left just doesn't understand.
Same with Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Bill Boeing, Andrew Carnegie, and so many others. These are the great people who built America.
Even though Apple had some minor success, Apple was eventually beat to a pulp in the PC market by Microsoft.
Jobs got booted out of Apple by a guy he hired.
Ok, I guess minor success is a relative term, but by the time he left Apple, he had tens of millions of dollars in the bank, and could have retired into a life of luxury and leisure if that's what he chose to do.
Apple created the first commercially successful PC -- the Apple II. They also created the first commercially successful computer with WIMP (Windows Icons Menus and Pointing Devices).
When Apple kicked Jobs out, they had 2% of the PC market.
Why?
Because Jobs blew it by creating a closed system. The orginal Mac was underpowered and very slow. It's memory couldn't be expanded. At first there wasn't a hard drive. Apple finally produced an external hard drive, but prohibited others from doing so. Most importantly, you had to apply to the Mac developer program and pay a whopping $3,000 (in 1984) to get the development tools. This locked out millions of kids like myself from developing cool software on the MAC. I remember using the first Mac at college. At first it was amazing, but it quickly became very frustrating.
Microsoft on the other hand didn't build hardware. They relied on partners, which allow companies like Compaq, Gateway, and Dell to flourish. Anyone could develop for the Microsoft platform. The Basic language was included and you could buy the C language compiler for $99. Kids like myself could learn how to do this on our own nickel and then use those skills to either create our own businesses or have fruitful careers in consulting or corporate IT.
Job was a great man who learned from his mistakes.
There are too many people that won't learn their mistakes and the mistakes of others. This is the big problem we have in the country today.
Microsoft on the other hand didn't build hardware. They relied on partners, which allow companies like Compaq, Gateway, and Dell to flourish. Anyone could develop for the Microsoft platform. The Basic language was included and you could buy the C language compiler for $99. Kids like myself could learn how to do this on our own nickel and then use those skills to either create our own businesses or have fruitful careers in consulting or corporate IT.
It's ironic though how Microsoft's open approach created most of their problems. Because they didn't control hardware they couldn't prevent al the incompatibilities and bugs that we've all come to know (and hate).
Jobs though had the foresight to do what Microsoft couldn't when he abandoned OS9 to move to Unix- based OS-X, and abandoned the PowerPC to move to Intel, the two moves that cemented Apple's return to dominate the PC market. In both cases Apple had to screw over its current owners by end-of-lifing their systems, but the improvement was so spectacular that Apple owners saw the value in switching. Microsoft on the other hand took forever to move away from archaic file systems and system architectures because it always wanted to maintain backwards compatibility.
#19. To: jwpegler, no gnu taxes, go65, badeye (#14)
Microsoft on the other hand didn't build hardware. They relied on partners, which allow companies like Compaq, Gateway, and Dell to flourish. Anyone could develop for the Microsoft platform. The Basic language was included and you could buy the C language compiler for $99. Kids like myself could learn how to do this on our own nickel and then use those skills to either create our own businesses or have fruitful careers in consulting or corporate IT.
So then as a kid you benefited from Microsoft's socialist business plan.
