Steve Jobs' Frenemies
By Brian Caulfield, 01.26.10, 06:00 PM EST
Who is the Apple chief's biggest friend or foe? It depends what year it is.
BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- For Apple, there's always a boogeyman. First it was IBM. Then it was Microsoft. Later it became Intel. Today it's Microsoft--again. And, one day it may be Google. In the world of Apple, today's eternal foe is tomorrow's fast friend.
Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) has never been afraid to pick a fight with the big guy. The first foe? Big Blue. It's easy to forget now how powerful IBM ( IBM - news - people ) once was on the desktop. The company is still a major force in the server rooms of government agencies and businesses, but it doesn't have clout in the consumer market, which is Apple's focus. Thus, IBM's relationship with Apple has changed dramatically over the decades, from foe to friend.
After IBM, of course, there was Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). While Apple's elegant computers fused hardware and software, Microsoft split the two apart and prospered. Its MS-DOS became a standard, thanks to its use on IBM's PCs.
In Pictures: Steve Jobs' Frenemies:http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/26/steve-jobs-microsoft-technology-business-intelligence-apple_slide_2.html
It earned the ire of the Mac faithful, however, with Windows. The software took its cues from Apple's graphical user interface, to be sure. It's commercial success, however, was what made Microsoft truly hated.
Hence the gasps when Microsoft founder Bill Gates ultimately rode to Apple's rescue in 1997. Apple struck an alliance with Microsoft, which invested $150 million in the then struggling company and committed to releasing a new version of Microsoft Office for the Macintosh. When newly returned Apple Chief Steve Jobs unveiled the alliance to the Apple faithful at the Macworld Expo, Gates' visage hovered over the crowd on an enormous screen.
Rather than marking a capitulation, however, that moment marked Apple's rebirth. While Microsoft remains a fierce Apple rival, it's also one of Apple's most important software developers, thanks to the Office software it makes for the Mac.
Meanwhile, Apple had other targets. Semiconductor giant Intel ( INTC - news - people ) made a good choice, if only because of its size and marketing presence. Apple commercials portrayed Intel's processors as a snail and mocked Intel's bunny-suited employees with commercials portraying them--and their processors--as "toasted."
And then came another dramatic turnabout. Jobs in 2005 revealed that Apple's OS X software was leading a "secret double life" on Intel's processors as well as on IBM's PowerPC chips. Jobs, and Apple, quickly hustled over to Intel's processors, turning a foe into a close friend.
That, of course, leaves Apple's ultimate enemy: the PC. With Microsoft's investment in Apple gone, Apple is free to pick on Microsoft once more, with commercials mocking Microsoft's Vista software and urging PC users to switch to the Mac.
So how long will the war last? Probably only until Apple can find a bigger, more polarizing foe to motivate its faithful. One possible candidate: Google ( GOOG - news - people ). Apple and the search rival don't compete quite as fiercely as Apple and Microsoft--yet.
But they're getting there, with Google pushing a new operating system for netbooks and building its own smart phone software and Apple nibbling on the mobile advertising market.
Reader Comments
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You make some interesting points, Mr. Caulfield, but you lost me when you wrote that "Bill Gates ultimately rode to Apple's rescue in 1997." A better description is that Jobs brokered a truce with Ga [Read More]
Posted by WindsorSmith | 01/26/10 08:14 PM EST
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Two approaches to ‘Allah’ issue
Two approaches to ‘Allah’ issue
Articles in the Wall Street Journal by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim show their contrasting approaches and political styles.
DATUK Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been on the ceramah trail the past couple of weeks. The last time he was this busy was when making his comeback as Permatang Pauh MP more than a year ago.
His sodomy trial starts next Tuesday and all this political activity is a sort of pre-trial campaign to reach out to as wide an audience as he can.
The Opposition Leader’s oratory at these ceramah have assumed a certain pattern.
Apart from providing his take on the forthcoming trial, his chief target has been Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the man who stands in the way of his political ambitions.
The PKR leader has also been at pains to explain his party’s stand on the controversial “Allah” issue and at times, has come across as rather defensive especially when the audience is Malay and rural.
An overwhelming majority of Malay-Muslims are very uncomfortable with the High Court ruling in allowing the use of the word “Allah” in The Herald and Anwar has been grappling with the Malay-Muslim sentiment on the ground.
But his stand would go down well with the Western liberals who want to see Islam in a way convenient to them.
This came across quite clearly in the Wall Street Journal which published two articles yesterday on the issue – one by Najib and the other by Anwar.
Najib’s piece was titled, “Finding Unity in Diversity” while Anwar’s carried the heading, “Muslims have no Monopoly over ‘Allah’.”
The articles were quite a contrast, not only in content but in reflecting the priorities and political styles of the two men.
The Allah issue has become very political and at the same time very personal to the religious beliefs of the various communities.
Najib chose not to take the political argument. He pointed out that citizen action and spirit had prevailed in helping to maintain calm and peace following attacks on places of worship.
There is no denying Najib has been under a great deal of pressure over this issue and he admitted there are passionate views on many sides and that this was a complex issue that the Government was trying to resolve .
He spoke about the reform path that his administration would take and said Malaysia’s society and the economy could only be built on that which unites rather than which divides.
His message was not about blame or justification but about unity, building bridges and looking forward.
As he put it: “I am determined that the vandalism of the places of worship and arson at the Tabernacle (the church that suffered the most damage) and the powerful response from everyday Malaysians can be transformed into a moment from which we can learn.”
Anwar, in his article, offered a concerted argument why Muslim do not own the word Allah.
But the politician in Anwar dominated in his article and he pinned the blame for what had happened squarely on reckless politicians, the mainstream media and NGOs linked to Umno.
He accused these quarters of fermenting fear to divert attention from controversial court decisions and missing jet engines.
It was the written form of what he had been saying at many of his ceramah, a political attack on his chief nemesis Najib and the ruling coalition.
He went beyond the Allah issue and pronounced this country as going down the drain because of corruption, incompetence and religious extremism.
He said the vision of Malaysia as a peaceful and stable location was in peril.
Anwar, some fear, is about to launch a repeat what he had done back in 1998 when he came under siege for charges of corruption and sodomy.
He blamed Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his troubles and in his anger, he not only ran down the former Prime Minister but the system and the country on the international front.
Anwar, they say, should try to draw the line between his personal issues and his politics from that of the country’s interests.
There is no denying that race relations have been affected by what has happened. Malaysians of all races are concerned about the future.
Some are pessimistic, others more hopeful. But what everyone wants now are solutions rather than finger-pointing.
Everyone wants a peaceful and acceptable solution to the “Allah” issue and the politics of blame will not help.
Articles in the Wall Street Journal by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim show their contrasting approaches and political styles.
DATUK Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been on the ceramah trail the past couple of weeks. The last time he was this busy was when making his comeback as Permatang Pauh MP more than a year ago.
His sodomy trial starts next Tuesday and all this political activity is a sort of pre-trial campaign to reach out to as wide an audience as he can.
The Opposition Leader’s oratory at these ceramah have assumed a certain pattern.
Apart from providing his take on the forthcoming trial, his chief target has been Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the man who stands in the way of his political ambitions.
The PKR leader has also been at pains to explain his party’s stand on the controversial “Allah” issue and at times, has come across as rather defensive especially when the audience is Malay and rural.
An overwhelming majority of Malay-Muslims are very uncomfortable with the High Court ruling in allowing the use of the word “Allah” in The Herald and Anwar has been grappling with the Malay-Muslim sentiment on the ground.
But his stand would go down well with the Western liberals who want to see Islam in a way convenient to them.
This came across quite clearly in the Wall Street Journal which published two articles yesterday on the issue – one by Najib and the other by Anwar.
Najib’s piece was titled, “Finding Unity in Diversity” while Anwar’s carried the heading, “Muslims have no Monopoly over ‘Allah’.”
The articles were quite a contrast, not only in content but in reflecting the priorities and political styles of the two men.
The Allah issue has become very political and at the same time very personal to the religious beliefs of the various communities.
Najib chose not to take the political argument. He pointed out that citizen action and spirit had prevailed in helping to maintain calm and peace following attacks on places of worship.
There is no denying Najib has been under a great deal of pressure over this issue and he admitted there are passionate views on many sides and that this was a complex issue that the Government was trying to resolve .
He spoke about the reform path that his administration would take and said Malaysia’s society and the economy could only be built on that which unites rather than which divides.
His message was not about blame or justification but about unity, building bridges and looking forward.
As he put it: “I am determined that the vandalism of the places of worship and arson at the Tabernacle (the church that suffered the most damage) and the powerful response from everyday Malaysians can be transformed into a moment from which we can learn.”
Anwar, in his article, offered a concerted argument why Muslim do not own the word Allah.
But the politician in Anwar dominated in his article and he pinned the blame for what had happened squarely on reckless politicians, the mainstream media and NGOs linked to Umno.
He accused these quarters of fermenting fear to divert attention from controversial court decisions and missing jet engines.
It was the written form of what he had been saying at many of his ceramah, a political attack on his chief nemesis Najib and the ruling coalition.
He went beyond the Allah issue and pronounced this country as going down the drain because of corruption, incompetence and religious extremism.
He said the vision of Malaysia as a peaceful and stable location was in peril.
Anwar, some fear, is about to launch a repeat what he had done back in 1998 when he came under siege for charges of corruption and sodomy.
He blamed Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his troubles and in his anger, he not only ran down the former Prime Minister but the system and the country on the international front.
Anwar, they say, should try to draw the line between his personal issues and his politics from that of the country’s interests.
There is no denying that race relations have been affected by what has happened. Malaysians of all races are concerned about the future.
Some are pessimistic, others more hopeful. But what everyone wants now are solutions rather than finger-pointing.
Everyone wants a peaceful and acceptable solution to the “Allah” issue and the politics of blame will not help.
Monday 25 January 2010
The Peril Of Executive Optimism In 2010
The Peril Of Executive Optimism In 2010
Andrew Ward, 01.25.10, 04:41 PM EST
It is likely to cost some CEOs their jobs.
In the past year the markets and confidence gyrated. Twelve months ago we all believed we were staring into the financial abyss. Since then consumer sentiment has come a long way. Even housing looks to have hit bottom and started heading toward recovery. Are the good times here again, or at least around the corner?
There are indeed green shoots poking their heads above the dirt, but anyone occupying a corner office should be aware of the dangers that lie ahead for someone in their position. When green shoots appear, especially after a barren spell like the one we've been through, expectations for recovery grow much faster than the recovery itself.
The mismatch between racing expectations and slower recovery can sow greater discontent than during the depths of the recession. People expect things to get back to their best quickly. But especially in terms of job and wage growth, a recovery can take many months longer to be felt on Main Street than on an already improving Wall Street.
As a result people start to feel very frustrated with those who are supposed to be leading the recovery, from government figures to the corporate heads. We are already seeing the end of President Obama's honeymoon, with his approval rating dropping from around 70% on inauguration day to below 50% a year later, according to the Gallup daily poll. Moreover, Obama's disapproval rating has risen from just over 10% at the inauguration to 44% today. Don't expect employers to avoid their share of that kind of mismatch-induced discontent.
In my research on the largest U.S. companies during and after the last major recession, in 1990 and '91, I found that more chief executives were fired in the nine months following the recession than during the nine-month recession itself. Another study, by Sheila Puffer of Northeastern University and Joseph Weintrop of Baruch College, found that CEO dismissals then were driven less by absolute performance than by performance relative to board expectations. What does that suggest about the months ahead? When times are tough and the economy is a deep trough, expectations stay low. Workers accept furloughs, pay cuts and hiring freezes, taking them in stride. As a recession bottoms out expectations remain low, and so when many companies this quarter reported earnings way down from last year, they were still better than analyst expectations. However, that sent the message that maybe things aren't as bad as we fear, that maybe the worst is over. Expectations can now rise--and they're beginning to rise quickly.
As expectations rise boards will quickly begin to expect profits to rise, too, not just to decline less than feared. Employees will expect the tide to turn over the next few quarters from laying off to hiring, from pay cuts to raises. Yet companies are unlikely to rebound as quickly as their boards and employees anticipate. Those green shoots are still tender and yet to bloom. Boards and employees will begin to grow disappointed and will hold to account whoever they consider responsible for their organization's performance. They will ratchet up the pressure for faster recovery. This is likely to lead to the dismissal of CEOs who are unable to temper rising expectations and hammer home a message of more cautious optimism.
Good times will be here again, but leaders need to set expectations, both for the speed of the recovery and also for its tone. They need to draw appropriate lessons from the boom and bust, that to some degree euphoria was built on an unsustainable model of debt-fueled consumption and expectations of never-ending growth. If consumers learn to temper their own behavior as incomes start to rise again, the good times won't feel quite as good as they did before, but the recovery should be more sustainable. That's to be hoped for--but expectations have to be managed or heads at the top will roll, in both business and politics.
Andrew Ward is a member of the faculty of the Management Department at Lehigh University. His most recent book is Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters, co-authored with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University.
See also: "Expect Heavy CEO Turnover Very Soon," by Nat Stoddard.
Andrew Ward, 01.25.10, 04:41 PM EST
It is likely to cost some CEOs their jobs.
In the past year the markets and confidence gyrated. Twelve months ago we all believed we were staring into the financial abyss. Since then consumer sentiment has come a long way. Even housing looks to have hit bottom and started heading toward recovery. Are the good times here again, or at least around the corner?
There are indeed green shoots poking their heads above the dirt, but anyone occupying a corner office should be aware of the dangers that lie ahead for someone in their position. When green shoots appear, especially after a barren spell like the one we've been through, expectations for recovery grow much faster than the recovery itself.
The mismatch between racing expectations and slower recovery can sow greater discontent than during the depths of the recession. People expect things to get back to their best quickly. But especially in terms of job and wage growth, a recovery can take many months longer to be felt on Main Street than on an already improving Wall Street.
As a result people start to feel very frustrated with those who are supposed to be leading the recovery, from government figures to the corporate heads. We are already seeing the end of President Obama's honeymoon, with his approval rating dropping from around 70% on inauguration day to below 50% a year later, according to the Gallup daily poll. Moreover, Obama's disapproval rating has risen from just over 10% at the inauguration to 44% today. Don't expect employers to avoid their share of that kind of mismatch-induced discontent.
In my research on the largest U.S. companies during and after the last major recession, in 1990 and '91, I found that more chief executives were fired in the nine months following the recession than during the nine-month recession itself. Another study, by Sheila Puffer of Northeastern University and Joseph Weintrop of Baruch College, found that CEO dismissals then were driven less by absolute performance than by performance relative to board expectations. What does that suggest about the months ahead? When times are tough and the economy is a deep trough, expectations stay low. Workers accept furloughs, pay cuts and hiring freezes, taking them in stride. As a recession bottoms out expectations remain low, and so when many companies this quarter reported earnings way down from last year, they were still better than analyst expectations. However, that sent the message that maybe things aren't as bad as we fear, that maybe the worst is over. Expectations can now rise--and they're beginning to rise quickly.
As expectations rise boards will quickly begin to expect profits to rise, too, not just to decline less than feared. Employees will expect the tide to turn over the next few quarters from laying off to hiring, from pay cuts to raises. Yet companies are unlikely to rebound as quickly as their boards and employees anticipate. Those green shoots are still tender and yet to bloom. Boards and employees will begin to grow disappointed and will hold to account whoever they consider responsible for their organization's performance. They will ratchet up the pressure for faster recovery. This is likely to lead to the dismissal of CEOs who are unable to temper rising expectations and hammer home a message of more cautious optimism.
Good times will be here again, but leaders need to set expectations, both for the speed of the recovery and also for its tone. They need to draw appropriate lessons from the boom and bust, that to some degree euphoria was built on an unsustainable model of debt-fueled consumption and expectations of never-ending growth. If consumers learn to temper their own behavior as incomes start to rise again, the good times won't feel quite as good as they did before, but the recovery should be more sustainable. That's to be hoped for--but expectations have to be managed or heads at the top will roll, in both business and politics.
Andrew Ward is a member of the faculty of the Management Department at Lehigh University. His most recent book is Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters, co-authored with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University.
See also: "Expect Heavy CEO Turnover Very Soon," by Nat Stoddard.
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