I'm so use to Steve Jobs ruling the world and getting his way. So this story comes as a surprise to me when I first heard about it, and it is a testament to the one truth that everyone finds out one day. If you think you're the man, there is always someone to prove you wrong!!! Case in point is the conversation between Steve Jobs and Sun CEO Johnathan Schwartz about a desktop concept from Sun that is similar to Mac OS X's called "Looking Glass". Steve told him "[if you move forward to commercialize it,] I'll just sue you". That didn't sit very well with Schwartz who responded with this:
"Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?" Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I'd help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they'd found inspiration. "And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too." Steve was silent.
I've never seen anyone dish Steve a strong helping of STFU and have a very strong IP portfolio to back it up.
Wow!!!
[Johnathan Schwartz via Gizmodo]
No comments:
Post a Comment