Apple thrives on its underdog status . Ever since the company ’s inception , it ’s merchandise on its ego - delineate reputation as ( in the words of one ofits own commercials ) misfits , rebels , troublemakers , round pegs in square holes . Apple is the Salmon River of the personal computer science world .
But to assert the image of the persecuted minority , there must needfully be a persecuting majority . The only trouble is that over the last 30 years Apple and Steve Jobs have had a riding habit of converting their steadfast enemies into their most steadfast allies .
In the late ’ 70s and former ’ LXXX , when the personal - work out scene was in its infancy , Apple face rigid competition from IBM . Ten age afterwards , and the PowerPC processor , evolve in coincidence with IBM , was being heralded as the savior of a Mac platform that had been bequeath in the dust by competitor Intel ’s young Pentium assembly line . Ten years afterthat , Steve Jobs gave a repeat performance , announcing that the Mac would switch to Intel ’s Core central processor architecture , robbing the PowerPC line of its last major personal calculation contract .
And then there ’s the unending bane , Microsoft . Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the Professor X and Magneto of the technology world : alternately rivals and allies , they have markedly different means to their various ends . Microsoft DOS and after Windows were the Mac OS ’s hardy competition throughout the ’ LXXX and ’ 90s . The personal computer field was apparently locked into an inexorable inhuman warfare , a battle of weapons platform ideology that Apple looked doomed to fall behind . And yet , when Apple extend to its low-water mark in 1997 , it was Microsoft ’s $ 150 million investment and commitment to continue developing Office that helped get Apple back on its feet — to the Mac community , it was a blood transfusion from its spoilt enemy .
A decennium has passed since that deal , and Apple is sitting on top of the earth , having conveniently forgotten its Faustian bargain . On the boldness of it , the companionship ’s behaviour toward its biggest opposition has scarcely softened . Apple continues to stab Microsoft in its marketing and ads today . But as far as Apple is concerned , it ’s like bait an old , defang carnival bear . In the current mood , Microsoft is no more probable to bring its brawny but sluggish armory to bear on Apple than the sun is to randomly blot out the lunation .
Not that it really matter , as the third and final turn of Steve Jobs ’s hat trick was a fiddling Trojan horse calledBoot Camp(and the subsequent third - party virtualization packages like Parallels andVMWare ) . The power to race Windows on a Mac has rendered moot the age - old disceptation that Macs just are n’t compatible with the vast majority of computer software — now they’reultimatelycompatible . Boot Camp is an insurance insurance policy : a way for Apple to inoculate itself against the threat of Windows . Because now there ’s nothing a Windows political machine can run that a comparable Mac ca n’t . And as with Apple ’s alliances with IBM and Intel , the ability of Macs to run Windows will needs leave Apple warm than it was before .
With its three chief challenger effectively neutralise , does that mean that Apple ’s continued success is a foregone last ? Apple has apparently chip at out a niche in the technology marketplace and it ’s one that ’s astonishingly complimentary of natural vulture . With a food market capitalization of more than $ 100 billion , over $ 13 billion in the bank , and stock trading at expert than $ 120 a share , “ all in ” and “ Apple ” are terms that can only reasonably coexist in crazed ramblings or fabrication . And with key alliances from next - propagation powerhouse like Yahoo and Google , is there no opposite leave that could take Apple down ?
Well , if FDR were around today — and deeply invested in technical issues — he might say that the only affair for Apple to venerate is Apple itself . Microsoft is learning that being at the top means there ’s just that much further to fall , and that ’s one of the reason that Apple is perfectly well-fixed incisively where it is . All this talk of Apple supplanting Microsoft , or Redmond crushing Cupertino is foolhardy and misplace . Microsoft is Apple ’s last rival of any import and Apple postulate them , just as they need Apple . The two have a symbiotic relationship ; not just in business enterprise or software , but in political theory . The expiration of Microsoft ’s dominance — or even just itsrelevance — could very well be the worst matter ever to find to Apple , motivate Jobs and ship’s company into a slack complacency that would be their unfastening . Apple need something to rebel against : after all , how can you discourage hoi polloi to believe different when everybody thinks like you ?
