There Was That Whole Internet Thing, Too

Anyone wanting to see the whole “history is written by the victors” thing in process should read Tim Wu and John Gruber battle it out over exactly why Apple has kicked the crap out of everyone else since the late 90s. Wu, who’s confused about what open v. closed systems really mean (he uses a variety of definitions), says that Apple has succeeded despite being a closed system. Gruber says open v. closed doesn’t matter, and says Apple succeeds because it produces great products fast (meaning first to market). Gruber’s argument can be condensed down to “Companies run by geniuses should generally do better than those which are not,” and I agree. Except. The Internet. So When Gruber says “The Wintel duopoly certainly ate the Mac?s lunch in the ?90s, but this coincided with the nadir of the Mac?s qualitative superiority,” he’s right. But it’s more right to say “this coincided with the end of the pre-Internet world.” Talking about Apple v. Microsoft without mentioning the Internet and the browser is like talking about WWII without talking about the nuke. Framing the conversation just in terms of open v. closed operating systems, the quality of the hardware or software or who the CEO was, is silly. Because without the Internet happening there’s no way Apple would have succeeded. Before the Internet all most people cared about was Office. And Office was really the only reason anyone wanted Windows machines instead of Macs. I remember endless Apple v. Windows debates in the early 90s when I was in college. Macs were better machines, everyone said, the whole Office thing was a huge pain. It was difficult to transfer files between operating systems, and generally speaking if you wanted to do Office stuff you needed a Windows machine. Macs were for college kids doing graphics stuff. Windows machines were for grown ups. That all changed in the mid 90′s of course. But before people bought computers primarily to get on the Internet Apple was hurting badly. Market share was so bad there was even a question about whether Microsoft would even continue making Office for Mac. Then everything came together for Apple at roughly the same time. Steve Jobs came back in 1997. He got Microsoft to recommit to Office on the Mac. From Wikipedia: At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into a partnership with

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