🚀 go-pugleaf

Several writers have commented that the recent Apple lawsuit is
somehow bad for the US microcomputer industry, and that IBM is
somehow better than Apple because of it. Included were comments
that Apple should compete by innovating, not by protecting what they
have.

I disagree with most of this.

Apple has already contributed mightily to the microcomputer world
through innovation, and continues through it's rapid improvement
of the Macintosh user interface. Multifinder, Hypercard, the
Script Manager, Resources, Desk Accessories, have all made the
life of Mac users more comfortable and fun in very recent history.
And there is no sign that the pace is slackening.

What we do see is everybody trying to copy Apple, and rip-off what they 
have already done. My question is: Why shouldn't Apple derive the
benefits of their innovation? Certainly the free cloning of such
works cannot stimulate further innovative work, as it detracts from
the economic benefits of such work. New product development is
terribly risky. What company is going to fund R&D if they know that
the results of their work will be stolen immediately? This is why
we have intellectual property rights protected by law in the first
place. It wasn't too long ago when the Wall Street mavens were
criticizing Apple for not coming out with another clone, or when the
company was in serious danger of folding completely. Where, pray tell,
would the microcomputer world be today without Apple??
 
There is nothing preventing Microsoft from developing a new 
expression of the mouse/windows/icon paradigm first developed
at SRI/PARC; nobody is claiming that Apple has the rights to
those concepts, merely the expression that they implement in
the Macintosh. To imply that the "look and feel" lawsuit
threatens innovation is folly, except perhaps if Apple is
to lose. THEN we will have death of innovation, for who will
dare produce something new???

In particular I gag at the concept that IBM is somehow
better for the US microcomputer industry than Apple. IBM is
the company that specializes in Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt,
vertical selling, and use of its marketing power to
supress innovation. By making an easily clonably open
architecture machine it has helped by standardizing the
market. But where is the innovation in the MS-DOS world?
The only innovation in the MS-DOS world is the innovative
ways that off-shore manufacturers are coming up with to cut     
hardware prices.