02/10/2001

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

Ah yes, a sequel. But this sequel’s not as long as yesterday’s, to be sure, because I’ve got an 8:30 meeting this morning and I’m most definitely not awake. We’ll be revisiting this topic soon.

My longtime friend Steve DeLassus wrote in yesterday (yet another e-mail message I haven’t responded to or even acknowledged), voicing objection to my implication that Steve Jobs innovates more than Bill Gates. Well, if the use of tacky transluscent plastic on computers is your idea of innovation–I had toys in the 1970s made of translucent plastic so you could see the multicolored gears and motors inside–then, sure.

That’s not really my idea of innovation. No, Jobs is a lot like Gates. He knows a good idea when he steals it. Sometimes. Both of them have stolen some good ideas, and both of them have stolen ideas that never should have been thought of in the first place. Anyway, there’ll be more on that later, because he raised some good points, coming from the angle of a software developer (that’s what he is, after all) and maybe I’ll raise some decent points in response, from the sysadmin’s and end-user’s standpoint (because that’s what I am, after all) but not right now because I’m out of time. Look for that tomorrow, I guess.

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