Re:BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X
by hinkley on Thursday January 09, 2020 @01:25PM
(#22003897)
Schwartz was an odd duck in charge if another odd duck. His writing was a good read, but it was a little odd to see such antiestablishment talk from an establishment player. And in the near term, his own establishment suffered the most.
I used the hell out of Java, but most of their other tech was in the weird quadrant of cool stuff that I won’t use. Something about their fit and finish always left me cold. Or if not that, price point.
Jobs was able to squeeze Microsoft. In a way I don't think any one else would or could.
Referring to Microsoft outright stealing Apple's IP and Gates' subsequent settlement. The $150m investment. The commitment to maintain Office on Mac. Forever license to all of Microsoft's API, enabling Mail.app to have pretty great integration with Exchange, for example.
BeOS was probably the better tech. But Jobs had the better strategies and the better team.
Compare this to Jonathan Schwartz cotemporaneous mismanagement of Sun's amazing IP, snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Schwartz just wasn't a bare knuckled brawler like Jobs.