Marc Canter wrote: " I apologize for bad mouthing Apple, but just because Mirosoft is evil - doesn't make Apple the good guys."

I would have liked to hear the talk, but I do have to jump in here; First off, I have always warned people not to get too wrapped up in the we whole "Good Guys", "Bad Guys" thing. Secondly, I'm old-enough school geek that I remember "Bad 'Ol Apple" suing "Poor Little Microsoft". k?

I do however, have to point out that on the scale of things Apple is definately not a company to be too worried about, whereas Microsoft is.

Apple is that most benign company; one that has felt itself tipping into the abyss, and hs managed to save itself.

Rather than just "a geek" I was an Apple Geek back in '97, I remember the score. The abyss was yawing open and Apple was on it's way down. Companies that have felt their own mortality tend to act better. Look at IBM.

Apple was saved by a couple of good decisions, and a couple of lucky ones, starting with them hiring Gilbert Amelio. He's gotten a fair amount of crap, because he wasn't a charismatic like Jobs, but he did a lotof the "dirty work" that provided Jobs with a company that worked once he took control again:

• Killing "Copeland"
• Restructuring Apple
• Refocusing Apple
• Starting the iMac project

Now, Microsoft has yet to have a "near death" experience, and with all the "friendlier face" stuff that's going on over there via their webloggers, I'll be curious to see if they turn around without such an experience.

Right now, it's not "Good v Bad", it's "Trust".

MS is a company I Do Not Trust, they have a history of screwing people/companies over (Please Scoble, link to me and ask for examples), this is Done Deal. They have a history of announcing stuff that never shows, for what seems to be the reason of intimidation. Technically, their OS is a pain to work on, but it is getting better, and there are even things to admire in it.

Apple, on the other hand, is a company I Did Not Trust. Where MS was a company that you felt was doing hits on people, Apple just kept driving themselves into ditches, and running over pedestrians because they were fiddling with the knobs on the radio. In the years since Gilbert Amelio, they have really improved their trustworthyness. Other than that who Newton debacle, for which I shall forever long to throw my MessagePad 2100 at Steve Jobs' overinf....*ahem*, sorry. :)

Open Source and trust? Well, I guess that depends on whose Open Source? :)

11:29:22 AM     Discuss: []