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A comment on Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985). Parent comment

Re:Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985) by melling on Monday September 15, 2014 @05:37AM (#8317969)
Yeah, imagine if the car market had been won by General Motors and 9 out of 10 cars was a GM. That's what happened in desktop computers. All other variants died. Apple was down to 4% at one point, and Microsoft extinguished all competition by requiring hardware makers to pay for DOS no matter what OS they actually shipped.

Anyway, don't you think we'd all be better off with 3 or 4 desktop and mobile choices?

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Re:Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985) by virmundi on Monday September 15, 2014 @08:37AM (#8318407)
Actually, no. Having multiple targets requires more shots. Ammo cost. Every company has to figure out how they will handle the mobile market. They have to pour resources into android and iPhone or else into a bridge tool like appcellerator. Bridge tools have costs because the require customization time.

Compare this to modern Web Development. There is only one family of targeted platforms: html and Javascript. That's it. Don't like Javascript? Tough. But at least you don't have to learn and pay for multiple, vendor-centric tech. I actually long for a standard platform for native mobile development.

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