Don’t get me wrong – the kind of drama going on in the tech world right now is like candy to a baby for me and I certainly don’t want it to stop.
This is because it gives me an opportunity to point out how a bunch of folks who make more than I do in a year in one day, or less, are behaving like little children.
If you can remember back to the Church Lady riff on Saturday Night Live, you can imagine my living room where I’ve been pleased to do that dance for several months while seriously wondering if the devil is making these folks do this stuff or they truly are a few cans short of a six pack.
Let’s take the latest row:
Apple/Google/RIM/Tweetdeck Pissing Match
Initially picked up on the WSJ and then covered again in a more summarized for over at the Mercury News at SilconValley.com, this has a bunch of folks who should know better arguing over who is the biggest douche.
Round One: Apple vs. RIM
This round seemed to be started by the king of tech himself Steve Jobs who, on his own earnings call, kicked Research in Motion in the sensitive parts by pointing out Apple had passed the company in Smartphones sold. Steve is evidently not a gracious winner but then, you don’t really have to be if you are kicking the snot out of everyone else despite being wedded to the least liked carrier in the US.
This is like Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France while pulling a Winnebago. You’d have to admit that making fun of his competitors would be his right. He kind of said that not only is RIM slow its bike (tablet) is ugly.
Jim Balsillie, the co-chief executive at RIM (because in Canada they like to ride tandem at the top spot), fired back saying that “For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market.”
By distortion field I’m guessing he means slipstream because I have yet to find anyone outside of RIM’s executive staff that wants their new PlayBook.
He did point out that developer’s want more options but he failed to mention they also like to make money and right now more developers are making money through Apple’s application store than any other. This is like arguing that sponsors like RIM’s bicycle team better while ignoring that more are actually sponsoring Apple’s.
Round Two: Apple vs. Google
Steve didn’t stop with RIM, once again when you win pulling a Winnebago you get the right to pretty much make fun of all of the other guys who lost even though they didn’t have a Winnebago to pull.
With Google he pointed out that Google really isn’t open and that Google just uses the term to conceal the fact they are fragmenting badly and are harder to develop for.
What Steve is saying is that Google is saying that Google has a faster bike, which they don’t, leaving off the part they can’t read a map which is why the Winnebago pulling rider is winning and then adding that no one likes to build accessories for Google bikes.
Ex-Apple employee – now Google’s head of Android – responded in a way that made it clear why he is no longer at Apple because he twitted the computer code to download Android Source code.
This must be the geek form of “Oh, no you didn’t!!! (Picture wagging finger here).
Round Three: TweetDeck Riding to Google’s Defense
Unfortunately, Steve Jobs used TweetDeck to point out the problem developers were having with Android and he was doing just fine until then. It is always wise to actually talk with the company you are using as an example and Iain Dodsworth; CEO of TweetDeck used twitter to point out that they had no problems with Android at all.
Basically, Mr. TweetDeck disagreed with the accessory part but didn’t disagree with the rest of Jobs’ position. So Google’s bike sucks and they can’t read a map but building accessories for the bike really isn’t that bad.
Wrapping Up: Decision Apple (they had already won)
I think that this just points out that when you are kicking everyone else’s butt all you need to do is stand up and bask in the glory of the win, adding insult to injury will eventually have you saying something stupid which only reduces the amount of glory you are basking in. You won the race, you don’t need to also be the biggest douche.
For everyone else if you are getting your butts kicked regularly getting in pissing matches with the guy who is kicking said butt isn’t nearly as rewarding as kicking his butt would be.
So, focus on that and shut the yappers.
There used to be an advertisement on the back of Comic books when I was growing up for some body building product. It showed the big bully kicking sand in the small guys face and taking his girl, the small guy then worked out, became bigger himself, and the next time the bully came by the no longer small guy kicked the bully’s butt.
Of course, it would have been far less compelling if the small guy just constantly gave the big guy a piece of his mind, and granted, it might explain the nickname “Sandy.”
Apple started out in the late 90s nearly bankrupt and instead of whining went from the guy on the receiving end of the sand to the one kicking it.
You want to beat Apple? Out execute them, otherwise shut up or you’ll just end up with sand in your mouth.
