

Steve Jobs Responding to an Insult - jkaykin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

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orionblastar
First this shows that Jobs was a class-act. Instead of responding to the
insult with another insult or calling him wrong, Jobs admitted he didn't know
much about OpenDoc (He was not at Apple when it was invented) and could not
find a way to make enough use of it for Apple to earn money (Apple was losing
money on it) and that he learned from past mistakes not to invent the
technology first and then market it, but instead cater to what the user needs
and fill that need and make it a good experience for the customer.

What Jobs was doing for the past several years before returning to Apple was
building up Next and Pixar, the technology at Next saved Apple by evolving
into Mac OS X and also merging with Mac OS technology.

OpenDoc was Apple's answer to the Amiga IIF (Intelligent Interface Format) and
Microsoft's OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) it allowed different software
to share document objects, pictures, and the like between software and even
platforms. Apple had problems with it using too much memory and could not find
a good use for it. MS-Office used OLE to share Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc
objects between applications. I programmed with it to control Word objects and
other objects and exchange data, fill in Word templates with data from SQL
Server for mailing lists and cover letters for FAX transmissions and other
things.

Jobs was right to terminate OpenDOC, the Apple Laserwriter, the Apple Newton
and other projects because Apple could not sell them and they cost more money
to support than they brought in. Other companies made laser printers cheaper
than Apple, even if Apple had a laser printer out first. The Newton didn't
quite work correctly in handwriting recognition, and the Palm Pilot worked
better than the Newton. OpenDoc wasn't finished and was using up resources and
money at Apple that Jobs needed to divert to other things in order to save the
company.

I can see why this guy thought Jobs was a jerk or a phony, Jobs didn't know
what OpenDocs could do and he admitted to it, sometimes you just don't know
things. I guess the guy liked OpenDoc and wanted to see it continue. Apple
also had Cyberdog and other projects like MKLinux that they canceled. Good
ideas yes, but they just didn't bring in enough money. Jobs learned to
innovate to the customer experience based on the customer's needs. The
customer did not need or want OpenDoc, the Newton, The LaserWriter, MKLinux,
Cyberdog, etc so Jobs had to cut them out. Then replace them with things the
customer did want and need like a lower cost Macintosh called an iMac, the
iPod music player and the iTunes music store, a new Macintosh operating system
called Mac OS X, the Safari web browser, etc. Those happened to do better and
earn more money for Apple because the customer had a better experience with
them and it filled their needs and wants.

