Red Sox and Apple vs. Yankees and Microsoft
Friday, October 29, 2004 - 01:47 PM ESTBy SteveJack
Rooting for the underdog seems to be a natural human tendency. For years, Red Sox fans have cheered for the Boston team only to be frustrated time and time again when the wins didn't come. And for years Macintosh users have cheered for the Apple team only to be disappointed when consumers didn't choose Mac (even though Mac users were enjoying plenty of "wins" nobody else knew about). Some people, however, feel the need to cheer for the winner, even if the usual winner, like the New York Yankees, bought their wins by collecting and hoarding top players by paying premium prices. Where's the fun in that? (If you're from New York, you're absolved, the home team trumps everything). Still, cheering for the Yankees seems a bit like rooting for Microsoft, a company that wins by controlling the personal computer desktop, not by developing superior products. Feel the need to own the browser market? Just bundle one in free with Windows, no matter the quality, and sit back and watch your competitors lose. Microsoft routinely tries to slap the ball out of their competitors' mitts, rules be damned. To Microsoft stockholders, like a lot of Yankee fans, the end justifies the means.
Now, this year, everything has been turned upside down. The Boston Red Sox are World Champions of Major League Baseball. And Apple Computer are world champions of the legal digital music market with Apple's iTunes Music Store capturing over 70 percent of music downloads and their iPod lines holding over 92 percent of the hard drive-based music player market. Sometimes, quality and teamwork do win. One look at the Red Sox hairstyles and pine tar-covered helmets tells you that they "Think Different" than the Yankees.
Isn't it weird that the Red Sox gave the Yankees the key to their success by mistakenly giving them Babe Ruth and that Apple did the same for Microsoft by mistakenly giving them the Mac? Luckily for Apple they still have the Mac OS today while Microsoft only has its upside down and backwards imitation of the Mac. Unfortunately, we'll all have to get along without the Babe.
Of course, the New York Yankees have many quality players, as do Microsoft. We know what happened to the Yankees - the team and their fans wrote off the Red Sox when they grabbed a 3-0 series lead. And Microsoft wrote off Apple when they grabbed a 9-1 market share lead with their Windows operating system. Now, we find out that many Windows iPod owners are actively considering Apple Macs for their next computer purchase while Yankees fans face a long, cold winter trying to figure out what went wrong as the Sox fans party. Just like in baseball, in the operating system wars, it ain't over 'til it's over. The Red Sox never folded operations and stopped trying and neither did Apple. Despite thousands of learned analysts' proclamations, folks, Apple and the Macintosh are still here. People buy PCs every few years, who's to say the next time around, that many more won't buy a Mac instead? Is Microsoft on the verge of a Yankees-style collapse?
The Red Sox, after years of neglecting pitching and trying to field offensive powerhouse teams, returned Curt Schilling to the team, cultivated their starting rotation and bolstered their bullpen. Apple, after years of neglecting the Mac and trying to make Pippins and Newtons, returned Steve Jobs to the team, cultivated Mac OS X and bolstered their bullpen with a star reliever - the iPod. The iPod is like Apple's Trojan Horse - spreading QuickTime and AAC far and wide, while tempting Windows iPodders to explore Apple's iMac G5, iBook, and other Mac options.
Only the future knows whether the Red Sox and Apple can continue their momentum and begin to build dynasties or if the Yankees and Microsoft will regroup, come back, and hit 'em hard. But, now that the Red Sox have finally won the World Series again, Apple Mac fans today really should be asking themselves, "Why not us?"
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
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"Microsoft routinely tries to slap the ball out of their competitors' mitts, rules be damned."
Love it! Nice article, fun read.