Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 25th Feb 2006 19:43 UTC
Apple Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, made some surprising remarks in an interview. Wozniak says that Apple should spin-off its iPod business to a separate division because it distracts Apple from its core business-- computers. While acknowledging that the switch to Intel was a necessary evil, Wozniak says: "It's like consorting with the enemy. We've had this long history of saying the enemy is the big black-hatted guys, and they kind of represent evil. We are different, and by being different we're better. All of a sudden we're the same in this hardware regard, so it's a little hard to swallow your words from the past." Update: Wozniak now denies having made the claims. Just like politics, boys and girls!
Thread beginning with comment 99184
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[12]: Heh.
by rayiner on Sat 25th Feb 2006 23:18 UTC in reply to "RE[11]: Heh."
rayiner
Member since:
2005-07-06

You're being silly. Just because you can't quantify how many successful companies there are and how many good ideas there are doesn't mean you can't say there are way more good ideas than successful companies built on them. For every company like Apple there are a dozen good but dead products like BeOS.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: -1

RE[13]: Heh.
by Get a Life on Sat 25th Feb 2006 23:52 in reply to "RE[12]: Heh."
Get a Life Member since:
2006-01-01

You aren't able to articulate what you're saying. You already believe it to be true, and simply take it for granted that it is. You conflate the success of Apple with Steve Jobs' skills at something that you basically allude to as simply having been successful at some point at running Apple. Capacity and realization are entirely different things, which is something you seem to believe when you talk about all of the "great ideas" that aren't realized. I'm humoring you in hopes that at some point you'll come up with something more meaningful than "Rayiner says so," because you aren't an authority and the otherwise circular arguments regarding Apple's recent successes seem to ignore failures and others' successes, and the historical scarcity of genuinely "great ideas" when compared to people that sell widgets.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

RE[14]: Heh.
by rayiner on Sun 26th Feb 2006 00:17 in reply to "RE[13]: Heh."
rayiner Member since:
2005-07-06

You aren't able to articulate what you're saying.

Or you're too dense to pick on what is really a very simple statement.

You conflate the success of Apple with Steve Jobs' skills at something that you basically allude to as simply having been successful at some point at running Apple.

Steve Jobs is the guy in charge of Apple. Apple's success it Job's success.

Regardless of what you might believe to be true, running a company is not easy, and running one in a market like Apple's is even harder. Thousands of good engineers could not help their companies survive the consolidation of the computer market around the Windows/x86 platform. Of all the companies that used to sell desktop machines in the 1980s, Apple is the only one that hasn't basically become a pusher of Wintel PCs. Would you have me believe it was because Apple's engineers were better than anyone else's, or would you concede that leadership had something to do with it?

Capacity and realization are entirely different things, which is something you seem to believe when you talk about all of the "great ideas" that aren't realized.

Realization is everything. Good products are a dime a dozen. Successful technology businesses are much more rare.

I'm humoring you in hopes that at some point you'll come up with something more meaningful than "Rayiner says so,"

And I'm trying not to call you on your excessive pedantry --- let's call it even.

otherwise circular arguments regarding Apple's recent successes seem to ignore failures and others' successes

What is circular about my argument? Talk about being vague...

and the historical scarcity of genuinely "great ideas" when compared to people that sell widgets.

What historical scarcity? You can look in any part of the market, and see how saavy business leadership is what makes products succeed rather than technical quality. Remember WordPerfect? How about Smalltalk? Alpha anyone? How about the Amiga, BeOS, and OS/2?

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: -1