@Philip, answers inline. :-) On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
Aki,
I beg to disagree with you as regards to who has contributed what to technology. When we talk of technology as a whole, we should not just look at semiconductors and processors. And as far as those are concern, Microsoft has contributed very little to their development and the progress would have happened in spite of them. It is Moore's law. Credit should go to industry pioneers such as Fairchild, Intel, TI, AMD and others. Just because Microsoft has adopted them, it does not make mean they have contributed any more to their development than Apple or even IBM and Oracle.
Microsoft adopted them well and was also the driving force on the tech revolutions. Please tell me the price of an external USB Hard Drive that works on most platforms, does not require a particular format to be recognised ( plug and play ) while the other that runs on the Mac? Lets also go back to the days when Apple produced SCSI cables and the cost over 500USd for a cable. Then such devices were rotting in computer departments.
Small things like online music distribution, desktop publishing, film editing (Final Cut Pro), innovate resistive touch technologies such as found in the iPhone and iPad have greatly altered how consumers interface with technology in today;s devices. This is more of contribution as is the popularization of Windows graphical user interface by Microsoft. And even with that, Apple was a pioneer with the Macintosh.
Like I said, DTP was Macs core. I'm not with you on using the word innovative on things like touch screens. They were in existence in many commerical systems even before Apple adopted them. The cost of creating such a nice touch screen interface came at a cost thus the Niche. And the Niche was successful. Corrections welcome.