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发帖数: 1493 | 1 By RICH KARLGAARD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044481270457761185
Last week Apple made headlines twice. On Monday it broke the world record
for shareholder value. Apple's $623.5 billion market cap beat Microsoft's
record from tech's notorious bubble era. (Microsoft needed a price-to-
earnings ratio of 72 in 1999 to set the record. Apple's ratio is a modest 16
.) Then on Friday, Apple won a $1.05 billion patent-infringement judgment
against Samsung, the Korean electronics giant and the maker of the Galaxy
line of smartphones that stirred Apple's ire.
Congratulations, Apple—twice. But these two coinciding events should give
us pause.
One, how badly has Apple been hurt by copycats if it has become the richest
company on earth? Do we want a patent system in which the strongest sue
everyone else? Is this good for innovation?
Two, Apple lost the jury trial, in a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on
most of its hardware claims, such as a ridiculous patent on curved glass for
phone surface design. Apple won mostly on software, such as "pinch and
stretch," a nifty design trick Apple introduced in 2007 with its first
iPhone. So why did Apple sue Samsung, the Galaxy hardware manufacturer, and
not Google, maker of the phone's Android software?
Apple sees Google as its chief competitor—this is no secret. Steve Jobs so
hated Google's Android that, even as he struggled with cancer, he told
biographer Walter Isaacson: "Google . . . ripped off the iPhone, wholesale
ripped us off. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will
spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I
'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. . . . I'm
willing to go thermonuclear on this."
It is revealing that Jobs spent precious energy in such an outburst. As a
longtime Silicon Valley observer, I believe the real story is not what it
seems. The source of Jobsian rage was not his Google loathing, per se. It
was fear that Apple might be "Microsofted" again.
Some history: As many people know by now, Apple founder Steve Jobs and
Macintosh computer designer Bill Atkinson drew heavily from the work of
Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. In the 1970s, PARC had developed a
computer called Alto. The computer featured all kinds of new stuff,
including a mouse and pop-up windows. Jobs visited PARC in 1979 and a light
switched on. A day or two later, Jobs met with an industrial designer and
ordered him to build a prototype computer with a mouse. Thus was born the
Apple Macintosh, which made its debut in 1984.
Enlarge Image
AFP/Getty Images
Apple's iPhone (left) and Samsung Electronic's Galaxy S mobile phone.
Did Apple steal from Xerox PARC or not? In the broadest sense, yes. The
visit to PARC did more than inspire Steve Jobs. It sent him directly on a
mission to build something very much like the Alto. But Jobs being Jobs, he
immediately had ideas for improvement. The mouse should have one button, not
three. It should work on any surface. It should be cheap to manufacture.
The pop-up windows should look this way, not that way.
Jobs swiped the idea and made it better. But Macintosh was only modestly
successful in the market, and Jobs was asked to leave Apple in 1985.
Meanwhile, his baby-boomer rival, Bill Gates, had introduced Microsoft
Windows software in 1983. It wasn't pretty, and it didn't work well until
version three in 1986, two years after the Macintosh's arrival. But it
incorporated several Apple features, and the personal-computer industry
built around Windows software soon boomed and grew to immense size.
Microsoft PCs crushed the Macintosh market share, which fell to 3% by the
late 1990s.
In the mind of Steve Jobs, I believe, the story was this: Even if he did
copy the idea of the Xerox Alto, he added so much value that the copying
barely amounted to technological petty larceny; Microsoft, by contrast, just
ripped off Apple without improving it.
What Bill Gates improved, of course, was not Apple's software but the entire
business model for personal computing. That's how Microsoft came to
dominate personal computing for a generation. That's how Microsoft beat the
market-cap world record and held it until Apple topped it nearly 13 years
later.
Jobs deeply feared a replay of this business-model history. He feared that
Google was going to pull a Microsoft and once again reduce Apple's products
to a pricey niche. To Jobs, Android looked like the new Windows.
So why doesn't Apple sue Google directly, instead of suing a Google hardware
partner like Samsung? Politics and public relations, mainly. Apple knows
that suing a foreign giant will go down a lot better than suing a Silicon
Valley neighbor. Apple enjoys huge favor right now among customers,
politicians and the public. Suing Google would divide Apple's support and
tarnish the company's image. So Apple sued a foreign company to send a
message to Google.
This techno-Shakespearian story is entertaining but is bad for the phone-
buying public. (Tablet patents were also part of the Apple-Samsung court
case, but smartphones were at the heart of the lawsuit.) As Samsung
contemplates filing an appeal, it appears that smartphone-makers may begin
redesigning their products to avoid crossing swords with Apple.
Last week I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note phone. It is a marvel of machinery.
It is larger, slimmer and lighter than Apple's iPhone. The Samsung Note's
screen is so large that people who see it think I must have acquired an
early version of the mini-iPad that Apple is expected to release soon. The
Note takes the iPhone hardware design and makes it significantly better.
Funny. That's just what Apple did with the Xerox Alto.
Mr. Karlgaard is the publisher of Forbes.
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★ 发自iPhone App: ChineseWeb 7.5 | s******3
发帖数: 7297 | 2 说的真好，老乔死不瞑目
【在 b******v 的大作中提到】
: By RICH KARLGAARD
: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044481270457761185
: Last week Apple made headlines twice. On Monday it broke the world record
: for shareholder value. Apple's $623.5 billion market cap beat Microsoft's
: record from tech's notorious bubble era. (Microsoft needed a price-to-
: earnings ratio of 72 in 1999 to set the record. Apple's ratio is a modest 16
: .) Then on Friday, Apple won a $1.05 billion patent-infringement judgment
: against Samsung, the Korean electronics giant and the maker of the Galaxy
: line of smartphones that stirred Apple's ire.
: Congratulations, Apple—twice. But these two coinciding events should give
| F******k
发帖数: 7375 | 3 此文作者基本反映了三轮的智力水平。拿note来说事儿不是扯鸡巴蛋么?果果要求禁售
名单里根本没有note |
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