OPEN THE GATES TO GREATER JOBS - A MICROCOSM OF OUR NATIONAL STRUGGLE

The great debate of the digital age, i.e., the struggle between Apple's IPhone (with it's "private" apps usable only on IPhone) and Google's Android (with universal apps that stand on any platform except Apple's) is a reiteration of the Mac versus Microsoft PC struggle of the 1980's, and most surprisingly as I just realized today, a kind of microcosm of the competing liberal (more control, better and safer experience for all) versus Conservative (let 1,000 flowers bloom and the competitive bloodletting begin because the consumer will benefit) world views. Is it better, as Apple believes, to tie the hardware, software and content handling into one tidy system that assures a simple user experience and higher quality control? Or is it better to give users and manufacturers more choice and free up avenues for more innovation by creating software systems that could be modified and used on different devices? The benefit of a "closed" Mac platform is control. But Microsoft and Google have a specific belief that "open" is the better approach, because it leads to more options and competition and consumer choice. As Bill Gates has said: "Most of the improvements in PC's came because consumers had a lot of choices, and that will someday be the case in the world of mobile devices. Eventually, open will succeed. In the long run, the coherence thing, you can't stay with that." Steve Jobs believed in "the coherence thing." He noted that "Google says we exert more control than they do, that we are closed and they are open...Well look at the results - Android's a mess. It has different screen sizes and versions, over a hundred permutations. I like being responsible for the whole user experience. We do it NOT to make money. We do it because we want to make GREAT PRODUCTS, not crap like Android." So today I asked myself where we are at this point in time? Where does America stand today, digitally speaking? As of today, APPLE (with its focus on control and a high quality experience versus Android with its focus on profit and choice) is the most innovative, most successful, most influential, most profitable corporation in the entire world. Apple products are universally acknowledged as the standard of excellence world wide. It is breathtaking how the archetypal digital struggle and the archetypal political struggle can be so amazingly similar!