From A Guy Who Knows 20-Foot Holes
By Mitch Berg
From the Pauline Kael files: Alphageek Steve Jobs demonstrates that his command of politics is equal to his savvy about marketing:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has stated that Al Gore, an Apple board member and former US vice-president, would win the presidency if he ran for election.”If he ran, there’s no question in my mind that he would be elected,” Jobs told Time magazine.
The problem? Algore is just too damn sensitive:
“But I think there’s a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see.”
I, for one, feel it; the fact that Algore is still in the news and still has his minions argling and bargling about the 2000 election is, indeed, painful.
“We have dug ourselves into a 20-foot hole, and we need somebody who knows how to build a ladder. Al’s the guy,” Jobs also told Newsweek. “Like many others, I have tried my best to convince him. So far, no luck.”
Speaking as the guy whose mercurial nature and neofundie commitment to his own knee-jerk feelings destroyed NeXT (my favorite computers ever) and nearly took Apple down the toilet, Jobs would be the expert.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Mitch said,
“Speaking as the guy whose mercurial nature and neofundie commitment to his own knee-jerk feelings destroyed NeXT (my favorite computers ever)”
Of course there is also the historical perspective. Apple had become a company run by suits – more focused on marketing and business models than innovation. Apple nearly went down the toilet completely independent of Jobs.
Considering that the NeXT was effectively the computer that the internet was born on and considering that the NeXT OS is essentially the basis of exery Mac OS after X, I’d say Jobs prognostications are worth considering.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:26 am
“Considering that the NeXT was effectively the computer that the internet was born on and considering that the NeXT OS is essentially the basis of exery Mac OS after X, I’d say Jobs prognostications are worth considering.”
Doug, you’re blowing smoke. The bulk of the internet was formed much before NeXT was even a wet dream, Ever read the RFCs? Most of the early ones are VAX oriented, then tending to a Sun orientation. Sorry, I was on the ‘net well before commercial enterprises were allowed and there were NO such thing as NeXTs. Those were the days when a machine with 4MB of RAM were considered big. The Internet itself was probably best promoted by BSD (it being the first OS to get good integration of TCP/IP and associated protocols). NeXT depended heavily upon BSD and you might check the machines that ran on for a clue.
Jobs is good at one thing: marketing. His technical decisions are marginal at best.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Nerdbert, shhhhhhhh, don’t upset Doug’s wildly innaccurate preconceptions. It only makes him reflexively defensive and prompts him to try to clarify himself in another wildly innacurate comment. It’s an ugly cycle.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Oh let me get this straight…
Al Gore, who invented the internet, did it on a NeXt machine?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Making an equation of Jobs’ marketing savvy and his political know-how isn’t the slam you want it to be. Jobs anticipates market demand, makes things people want, and he makes people want to want them like few others can.
Jobs may know how to sell quality in niche markets, but that doesn’t translate so well to the POTUS derby. Jobs’ standard of quality has little market currency there.
And, of course, Jobs is biased because Gore sits on Apple’s board of directors. You should see Gore’s triptych of 23″ Apple Cinema Displays in his office. That bit of trivia aligns well with your “conservation for thee, not for me” criticism.
NeXT lives on in Mac OS X. It’s been sublimated into something better.
Why does this come from the dead movie critic files?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:48 am
HELP!!! I’m down here in a 20 foot hole and I think I see Doug in here too!
May 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Nerdbert said,
“Doug, you’re blowing smoke. The bulk of the internet was formed much before NeXT was even a wet dream.”
The first web server and browser were developed on a NeXT by engineers at CERN. It was that application that made the web accessible to users outside of research facilities, the military etc.
As for Gore involvement, among other things, it was his High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 that funded the development of Mosiac – also known as Netscape. Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. He was referring to the legislation he wrote and sponsored.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Gore was more or less taken out of context. Not that he’s anyone to complain.
And NeXT computers DID rock, were a technical marvel, and did have a lot to do with getting the internet as we know it established. As pieces of technology, NeXT machines were and are amazing; I own a Black Slab, actually, and it’s by far the favorite computer I’ve ever had.
But the technology wasn’t the problem – it was the marketing. Putting a median-price $6,000 workstation (back when NeXT did hardware) on the market at a time when the computer was in the process of becoming commoditizing itself wasn’t great timing.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I remember my first color Macintosh. It cost $5,000. Those were the days.
Skipped my question, the dead movie critic one. Pauline Kael’s connection to this?
May 24th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Doug: You said “internet”, not “web”.
I don’t think Sun, Compaq, nor Microsoft deserves the credit (or shame) for any of the development work I do. Likewise, I don’t necessarily agree with attributing kudos for the early web software back onto the folks at NeXT (beyond what they deserve for creating a good development platform).
A nit to pick: having used multiple versions of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, the “Mosaic – also known as Netscape” is also an error. Netscape may have been based on Mosaic and had developers in common, but the names refer to very different products. Netscape was the one you wanted to use, especially on the other end of a modem line.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Kael, observing Nixon’s election: “I don’t know anyone who voted for him”.
Jobs’ remarks reminded me of Kael.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I think history has vindicated Kael there.
Jobs knows people who voted for Bush, but wishes he didn’t.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I think history has vindicated Kael there.
For being hopelessly provincial?
Go ask History again; the question musta gotten garbled.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
“But I think there’s a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see.”
BS – we can see it. Algore is obviously treating his depression.
…with cake and ice cream and pizza and pancakes and chicken and ribs and french fries and jelly beans and french toast and sausage and chocolate and McDonald’s and Dairy Queen and spaghetti and corn dogs.
He counts for two passengers on his private jet.
May 24th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I asked History again. It said Pauline Kael kept smart company.
But she tried to discredit Orson Welles, so screw her provincial ass.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Troy said,
“Doug: You said “internet”, not “web”.”
and
“having used multiple versions of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, the “Mosaic – also known as Netscape” is also an error.”
You may want to try ExLax or a few bran muffins for that condition Troy.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Doug: Just trying to keep you “reality based”. It’s a difficult task. 😉
May 24th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Doug and reality do have “seeing other people” sort of air.
The web was a bolt on to make the net “pretty” and if you look at it, much of it just arose from making Apple’s Hypertext an IP protocol. Nothing particularly new, and nothing to do with NeXT. Overall, a nice idea, but gopher was first to attempt the luser interface and if it had been run by competent folks it may not have lost to http. But there’s a lot more that goes on, like mail, usenet, chat, p2p, etc that isn’t the web but is the ‘net.
Troy’s right about Mosaic vs. Netscape. Netscape did as much or more “embrace and extend” to Mosaic as IE did to Netscape. They both added all sorts of extensions to the protocol to get audience lock-in to get market share. I know, since I had to run Mosaic at work (they wouldn’t pay Netscape’s fee and I wasn’t unethical enough to ignore the requirement), but Netscape at home.
NeXTs weren’t bad boxes, unless you had to administer them in a heterogeneous environment. You could get Suns and HPs to play well together, but throwing in NeXTs made trouble. Nothing was as bad as the AIX administration of the period, though (though the AT&T boxes did their best to come close). I had a NeXT at home for a while, but when Mach386 came out I sold that NeXT off and switched — it was cheaper and faster and DPS support wasn’t a key selling point for me since I wanted a development system with fast floating point and didn’t give a rip for the interface.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I got the Black Slab for $50 when the NeXT consulting shop I worked for had a fire sale for most of their old hardware. I bought it partly for the geek cool factor, partly so I could mention it during job interviews with geeks.
And I think dropping the name helped get me one or two jobs.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Still got the slab, mitch?