The Computer Wars

I can remember back to the beginning of the computer wars. I was young then, new to computers myself. Before the first personal computers hit the market, all I’d ever seen were the monsters in corporate IT departments. No one could get close to those giant brains back then; we’d have to communicate with the computers through a little altar, called the teletype.

There were more contenders back then, than what there are now. Many of them have fallen by the wayside, defeated in the struggle for dominancy of the world. They made their bid for supremacy, but just didn’t have what it takes to rule. It’s been a brutal war, one in which only the most popular can survive.

The first contender I met was the TRS-80, Model 1. It really wasn’t all that impressive looking, even by the standards back then. Why, it looked more like a toy than a true computer. Forget about fancy graphics, enormous hard drives and neon lights; it was plain and simple, chugging along with its white on black text and a tape recorder for its permanent memory. Why, nobody had ever heard of megabytes back then, let along gigabytes or terabytes, we were impressed to see 64 kilobytes.

What a strange twist on Darwinism; it hasn’t been about survival of the fittest, but survival of the most popular. Some would say (and do so loudly) that the fittest hasn’t been the survivor. No, this war has always been about market share; who could garner the most attention. Some of the brave who have fallen just couldn’t get the attention they so richly deserved.

Ever since the beginning, the PC had an advantage, which they capitalized on, having the great and glorious name of IBM to use. Since everyone know that nobody knows more about computers than the computer giant themselves, that made the giant’s little brother a shoe-in for fame; the PC was just an IBM mainframe in a little box. Think of all that raw computing power, sitting there on your desktop, just waiting for you to use it… Not!

While all other contenders have died from lack of attention, there’s one contender who’s just too stubborn to give up the ghost… the Apple. Through all the years of hardship and struggle, Apple’s held on, supported by a meager band of loyal supporters. Never minding that their platform had lost the race, these die-hards still shout loudly, “Apple is King! Apple is King! Long live Apple!”

It’s sad, but true. Victory will never be truly gained for the PC, because Apple still holds on and will still keep holding on, maintaining a small beachhead of superior graphics, no matter what the PCs do.

This war is changing; and it’s changing because of Apple. The PC mega-army is still fighting a conventional war, a war of marketing; but not Apple. No, they’ve switched their tactics, replacing conventional warfare with guerrilla warfare. Since they can’t go head to head with PCs on the field of public opinion, they’ve concocted an end run; in fact, they’ve concocted several end runs.

First there was the iPod, innocent looking in this war, since nobody thought of it as a computer. True strategist knows, wars are won by logistics, so the iPod was backed up by its logistics train; iTunes. When iTunes invades a PC, it takes over all media, converting it to something that the PC can’t understand, without iTunes installed. This gives them a permanent beachhead to use against the PC.

Then there was the iPhone, another soldier in Apple’s guerilla war. People stopped carrying their Pocket PCs and laptops, depending on their iPhone to take care of them. Once again, remembering the lessons of logistics, Apple provided the iPhone with a logistics train; the app store.

The latest blow in this saga of guerilla war is the iPad. Building upon their successes with touch screen technology, Apple hit the left flank of the PC army with a totally unsuspecting attack, a replacement for the laptop. This was a particularly fortunate choice for Apple, as the PC crowd had been gradually shifting over to the lighter, more agile laptop. By attacking the laptop, Apple was attacking the best of the best of PC’s army and dealing it a killer blow.

Even IT professionals have fallen to this latest blow. Many are using their iPads to access mainframes, provide customer support and other tasks which were previously firmly in the grasp of the PC. This end run may have been the greatest strategic victory in the history of computer warfare, dealing a heavy blow right to the heart of PC standings.

Who knows where the war will go from here? It’s clear to see that it’s far from over. The prodigious might of the PC army is a hard foe to defeat. Yet, Apple has shown that innovation in warfare will always succeed. We can only say, may the best man… err, computer… uh, win.