Jobs was able to squeeze Microsoft. In a way I don't think any one else would or could.
Referring to Microsoft outright stealing Apple's IP and Gates' subsequent settlement. The $150m investment. The commitment to maintain Office on Mac. Forever license to all of Microsoft's API, enabling Mail.app to have pretty great integration with Exchange, for example.
BeOS was probably the better tech. But Jobs had the better strategies and the better team.
Compare this to Jonathan Schwartz cotemporaneous mismanagement of Sun's amazing IP, snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Schwartz just wasn't a bare knuckled brawler like Jobs.
Schwartz was an odd duck in charge if another odd duck. His writing was a good read, but it was a little odd to see such antiestablishment talk from an establishment player. And in the near term, his own establishment suffered the most.
I used the hell out of Java, but most of their other tech was in the weird quadrant of cool stuff that I wonβt use. Something about their fit and finish always left me cold. Or if not that, price point.
Who knows. Maybe BeOS also had other nice talented people working there, with good vision for products, that just needed more room and market that apple could provide. We will never know
Maybe! Itβs more than just having the talent tho β you need to have a talented leader. Johnny Ive was at Apple for 5 years before Jobs showed up, without too much to show for it.
If Apple had failed, I wonder what Steve would have done after Pixar. Start a new computer company? Could he (or perhaps a better question: would he) have swooped in with Mac compatibility mode?
The real win was a mobile future sans Microsoft. I doubt smart phones would be what they are today if not for the iPhone, and the iPhone required huge resources and a maniac cracking the whip. Would Jony Ive leave a failing Apple and work with Steve? If not, would we even have the iPod let alone the iPhone?
On the plus side, Nokia might have still been around.
