Steve Jobs' Endangered Second Act Mar 8, 2008, 05 :00 UTC (5 Talkback[s]) (7658 reads) (Other stories by Andy Updegrove)
"And now you can begin to see why I think that rather than standing on the verge of an unprecedentedly successful second act, Jobs may be about to replay the same mistakes of almost three decades ago. Will developers wish to tie themselves to the whims of Steve Jobs, the same way they did 25 years ago to Bill Gates--and pay a toll for the privilege of doing so to boot? Or will they spend their time working to support more open platforms, such as Android, where there will be less control, no toll booth, and multiple channels of distribution? Haven't they all been there before?
"Unfortunately, it appears that Steve Jobs has learned the wrong lessons, and is fighting the last war rather than the current one. Jobs failed in the early 1980s in large part because the IBM PC platform provided what at the time was a remarkably open platform for ISVs, as well as an ever-growing potential customer market as more and more personal computer buyers flocked to the 'WinTel' platform instead of Tandy, Commodore--or Apple.
