Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Eric_Shockwave-Rider_Larson From: Eric_Shockwave-Rider_Larson@cup.portal.com Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Re:IBM did it first Message-ID: <5003@cup.portal.com> Date: 1 May 88 18:25:16 GMT References: Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 47 XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4308 Several writers have commented that the recent Apple lawsuit is somehow bad for the US microcomputer industry, and that IBM is somehow better than Apple because of it. Included were comments that Apple should compete by innovating, not by protecting what they have. I disagree with most of this. Apple has already contributed mightily to the microcomputer world through innovation, and continues through it's rapid improvement of the Macintosh user interface. Multifinder, Hypercard, the Script Manager, Resources, Desk Accessories, have all made the life of Mac users more comfortable and fun in very recent history. And there is no sign that the pace is slackening. What we do see is everybody trying to copy Apple, and rip-off what they have already done. My question is: Why shouldn't Apple derive the benefits of their innovation? Certainly the free cloning of such works cannot stimulate further innovative work, as it detracts from the economic benefits of such work. New product development is terribly risky. What company is going to fund R&D if they know that the results of their work will be stolen immediately? This is why we have intellectual property rights protected by law in the first place. It wasn't too long ago when the Wall Street mavens were criticizing Apple for not coming out with another clone, or when the company was in serious danger of folding completely. Where, pray tell, would the microcomputer world be today without Apple?? There is nothing preventing Microsoft from developing a new expression of the mouse/windows/icon paradigm first developed at SRI/PARC; nobody is claiming that Apple has the rights to those concepts, merely the expression that they implement in the Macintosh. To imply that the "look and feel" lawsuit threatens innovation is folly, except perhaps if Apple is to lose. THEN we will have death of innovation, for who will dare produce something new??? In particular I gag at the concept that IBM is somehow better for the US microcomputer industry than Apple. IBM is the company that specializes in Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, vertical selling, and use of its marketing power to supress innovation. By making an easily clonably open architecture machine it has helped by standardizing the market. But where is the innovation in the MS-DOS world? The only innovation in the MS-DOS world is the innovative ways that off-shore manufacturers are coming up with to cut hardware prices.