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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Monday, October 18, 2004Microsoft vs. Apple: Who got the digital hub first?My previous post, about a misguided analyst article, garnered a number of emails from people who were simply positive that Apple announced their digital hub strategy before Microsoft did. That assumption, sadly, is mistaken.In a January 6, 2001 keynote address at the CES 2001 trade show in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announced his company's Digital Lifestyles strategy. As Gates said, "Throughout the house, whether it's a music speaker or picture frame, something on your refrigerator that lets you look at your family schedule, all of your information will be available. And the fact that it's coming from that PC and, therefore, coordinated and shared, isn't something that people will have to know about or administer ... As it comes together, all these things happening at once really are about a digital lifestyle. The pieces that make this happen include the breakthrough wireless technology ... One of the key elements -- and you won't be surprised hearing this from me -- is that software is the key to this. Software defines that communication experience ... all those different interfaces and those islands of information are something that's critical to improve. If you want to take your music and move it between these different devices, that again should be something that you can set it up once, and it just happens. Likewise, for your play list, that shouldn't be something separate that's complex or difficult. And so there is a need to have a lot of new industry standards. There is a need to have a lot of powerful software that works on these devices. There's a need to have the devices reach out through the networks to get services, which makes your information available wherever you go, even outside the home, and provides the latest and greatest software." On January 9, 2001--three days after Gates' presentation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs keynoted the MacWorld San Francisco trade show in San Francisco. While Apple doesn't maintain transcripts of these talks, numerous sources supplied live coverage. On The PowerBook Source, for example, we learn that Jobs introduced Apple's "digital hub" strategy and then talked about iMovie, QuickTime, and Firewire. He then introduced iTunes and iDVD. Java World writes, "Jobs also presented his vision for the future of the PC. He sees the new role of the PC as being the digital hub. He champions Apple's applications that allow users to import pictures from digital cameras and camcorders and create iMovies that can be written to DVDs." And Low End Mac reported, "Steve Jobs shared his vision of the computer as a digital hub, connecting the Internet, MP3 players, digital cameras, and so much more. In other words, the personal computer is evolving to a new role; it is not dead." OK, so we've established the order in which these events occured. In the future, it might be interesting to rate how they've performed while implementing their respective strategies. Both sound similar, but while Apple has focused exclusively on digital music and Mac-based applications, Microsoft has worked harder on intra-device connectivity and a massive community of third party services, hardware, and software. [ Posted at 2:00 PM | Permalink ]
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