Apple’s Pyrrhic victory

It’s uncertain what Apple achieved through its court victory against Samsung Electronics last week, other than to give its Korean rival an enormous amount of cheap publicity while risking painting itself as the technology industry’s new bullyboy. By Duncan McLeod.

Added by Duncan McLeod on 29 August 2012.
Saved under Duncan McLeod, Opinion, Top
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To understand the importance — and irony — of last week’s court victory by Apple, it’s necessary to go back to 1979. It was 33 years ago that a young Steve Jobs paid a visit to the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc), a research and development facility in Silicon Valley owned by Xerox.

Xerox Parc is renowned for having invented or been involved in the development of many of the technologies that continue to help shape the computer industry to this day. But it wasn’t Parc’s seminal work on Ethernet, laser printers or object-oriented programming that caught Jobs’s attention. Rather, it was a computer called the Alto. A curious little thing called a mouse controlled the computer. This allowed users to direct a visual pointer on a display powered by a graphical user interface (GUI) made up of on-screen pop-up windows. To Jobs, both the mouse and the GUI were revolutionary.

Details of what happened next are disputed, but most chroniclers tell of how Jobs ordered Apple to copy the technology and incorporate it into what would form the basis of the first Macintosh computer, released in 1984.

In short, Apple appropriated — stole, it could be argued — two of the pillars of modern personal computing and commercialised them. Xerox was too busy selling photocopier machines at the time to realise the significance of Parc’s inventions.

Skip forward 33 years, and the irony of Apple’s war with Samsung — and by proxy with Google and its Android operating system, which Jobs vowed to destroy — is hard to miss. Jobs made it clear he believed that Android, which powers most Samsung-made smartphones, was a rip-off of the iPhone’s software. His successor, Tim Cook, has taken up the anti-Android crusade with zeal. Cook this week applauded the court for determining that Samsung’s behaviour was “wilful” and for “sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right”.

Perhaps Cook genuinely doesn’t see the double standard in this. But the fact is the IT industry has always moved forward based on companies cribbing each other’s ideas and innovating upon those ideas. It’s what Apple itself did with the GUI and the mouse and what Microsoft did with DOS and Windows.

When Apple introduced the iPhone five years ago, it was revolutionary. It upended an industry, sending rivals like Nokia and Research in Motion into a tailspin. But much has changed since 2007. Most significantly, Android has grown in leaps and bounds, with a range of companies, from Samsung to HTC, building powerful smartphones on the back of the software.

Apple is expected to take the wraps off a new iPhone in September. For now, though, a growing number of Android-powered smartphones, including Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S3, are arguably superior to the current iPhone model. Apple is no longer way out in front of the race as it was until fairly recently and the new iPhone will have to be special if it’s not going to fall further behind.

Of course, Apple’s war with Samsung is a proxy for its battle with what it really fears most: Google’s Android. It’s probably worried that what happened in the personal computer wars of the 1980s, where it ceded the market to Windows and became a niche player, will happen again, this time with Android.

The company is right to be fearful. But behaving like the industry’s new bullyboy, releasing the legal attack dogs at every turn, could backfire on it in the court of public opinion, especially if it continues to slip behind its rivals in innovation.  — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media

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  • http://www.simon.co.za/ Simon

    Nice article Duncan. Just one thing – from what I can tell, it’s an established fact that Apple bought rights to the Alto GUI and other Xerox technologies with a combination of cash and stock. Jobs essentially struck a deal with Xerox and effectively licensed the bits he needed from them. I have never heard this disputed anywhere, unless I’m missing something?

  • Louis
  • Greg Mahlknecht

    AFAIK there was no licensing – the stock was in exchange for visits to the lab, the actual ideas were lifted without direct compensation. But that shouldn’t be surprising, Xerox PARC was one of the last true tech R&D playgrounds – they didn’t care about commercialisation or profits, it was a place for engineers to play around and do awesome stuff. Usually when scientists are let free without any concern for commercialization, true innovation happens. Generally scientists don’t care if people steal their ideas. The accountants and lawyers do.

    I think Jobs always wanted Apple to be a PARC type environment, creating new concepts and ideas, but his and Apple’s strongpoint has always been taking young, existing technologies and concepts and commercialising them.

  • Idiot proof

    Proof once again that copyright laws kill innovation. In other words, we (as humans) are prepared to sacrifice common progress for corporate profits. The irony is it almost invariably backfires on the organization trying to protect it’s intellectual property. Check what happened to the Wright Brothers and Colt (six gun revolver). They both got so hung up protecting their IP they fell behind in innovation, and died. Bye bye Apple :-/

  • Lucas

    GREAT article Duncan-

  • http://www.simon.co.za/ Simon

    The deal was actually quite profitable for Xerox.

    “Xerox invested $1 million in Apple by purchasing 100,000 shares at $10 each. Furthermore, Xerox signed an agreement with Apple to never purchase more than 5 percent of Apple’s outstanding shares. Within a year, these shares split into 800,000 worth $17.6 million when Apple went public.”

    I’d say that’s a pretty good return for a project that Xerox didn’t know what to do with.

  • Greg Mahlknecht

    Yes that is a good return. It doesn’t change
    the fact that Apple didn’t get a license nor change the motivations of R&D at PARC. Xerox Venture Capital department actually made that investment before Jobs went to PARC, so saying that investment had anything to do with the GUI really doesn’t hold much water.

    To bring this thread back on track though – there’s no evidence that Apple licensed or had any rights to the Alto GUI, they “were inspired” by it (or, to quote Jobs, “we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas”), then sued MS when MS was “inspired” by it. A leopard really doesn’t change its spots, does it?

    We learned about Microsoft’s “Embrace, extend, extinguish” strategy from their legal shenanigans. What will Apple’s be after all this? “Steal, Patent, Sue?”

  • http://profiles.google.com/edgarloxton Edgar Loxton

    The smartphone environment has become a lot less interesting and exciting in recent times as Apple and Android strengthened their dominance. It has become a two horse race with less variety than a few years ago. Remember Palm OS/WebOS, Symbian, Blackberry, MeeGo, Maemo? Nowadays every new phone is an Android, and they are all largely the same. It is so boring. Maybe we will see more variety as a result of Apple’s lawsuit(s) as phone manufacturers look for alternative software and/or customise Android more. Windows 7/8 might also get more interest. And Blackberry 10 might stand more of a chance. So I am hoping that instead of killing it, copyright will result in more innovation.

  • Biscuit1018

    Duncan, I find the article a little dramatic, emotive and even a little biased
    The emotive stuff around Xerox is entertaining but irrelevant. We live in 2012 not 1980 (or was it 1979) Again everyone was doing it.

    I agree that
    * US patent law is crazy and I am unhappy about *all* the cases going on
    * ‘Copying’ as such should not be seen as such a sin (unless its counterfeiting or could mistaken by a lay person)

    BUT its the anti-Apple jihad (not just this article) that I take issue with
    * Everyone seems to be suing everyone the exception being Apple vs Microsoft who have made nice with cross licensing deals
    * We have a set of laws today. Everyone has to play the game within those set of laws. To use a sports analogy you can’t decline to take advantage of a weak offside law because you are morally opposed to it when everyone else takes advantage of it. It’s the game, hate it if you want, but it needs to be played

    So why ping Apple and not the others? I can think of 2 reasons
    * Apple are the tall tree right now and therefore get the wind. Apple may be the tall tree but Samsung are hardly the sapling being bullied by the big boy.
    * Apple have just won a case and others haven’t. Their day may be soon.

    My view – If one looks at pre iPhone and post-iPhone Samsung one could be forgiven for inferring that ‘copying’ took place.
    I did infer that but I (personally) dont have an issue. However the jury’s interpretation of the facts shows they did have a problem.

    In this case the enemy appears to be the law. To make a player the enemy is biased.

  • Shava

    The copyright law actually works. Imagine spending billions creating something and in comes Joe, copies everything and you compete with him in the market. WRONG. Samsung copied and its not just the rounded rectangle 6 other very important features that Samsung spend three weeks on with a single designer to “produce”. Actually without patents, why innovate. Just wait for others to innovate and you simply copy. Innovation – dead! The iPhone 5 will be revolutionary you can count on that. AM glad that this time round, LG made the panels for iPhone 5 else Samsung would have rushed to “produce” an iPhone killer.

  • Shava

    Engineers need to eat. Clearly you miss a very important point; It costs more than $100,000 to educate an engineer. Its costs even more, unless you have rich parents or rich family (or even a strong support base) to be able to sit and create. Bill, Mark etc were all Harvard dropouts an elite, expensive school. Tells you something? Clearly not. Licenses are there for people to pay for innovation. The year of the Copy Cats.

  • Greg Mahlknecht

    Not sure how that’s in any way relevant? R&D departments should not be run as profit centres, it’s not the Engineers’ problem (degreed or not – I was referring to the job description, not the qualification) how their employer pays their wages. And it should’t be. That was my point.

  • Greg Mahlknecht

    If you count “rounded rectangles” an important innovative feature, then innovation isn’t dead… the meaning of innovation is.

    How the jury held up Apple’s patents is a mystery. There was clear prior art on them. I’ll concur the trade dress was encroached on by Samsung, but that’s a different matter entirely, that’s not even in the “innovation” category. The patents are.

  • Dirk de Vos

    What about triangular tablets! http://www.economist.com/node/21561912

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