"Triumph of the Nerds"

In 1996 Robert Cringley released a 3-part PBS documentary o'n the personal computer industry Triumph of the Nerds. Last night, I finally got around to watching it. (I'm behind on my TV viewing.) It focuses on Gates and Jobs as individuals of course, and delves deeply into the history of the personal computer. It was fun for me to watch. Especially since I've been in this industry since the late-80s. I was at Apple in 1990 (both Jobs and Scully are interviewed) and later I worked at Symantec (Eubanks is in there). It was quite a little "trip" down memory lane.

It made me think about innovations. The PC is an innovation that has definitely changed the way we live and work. We have a tagline around here at Sun that says that "Innovation Happens Everywhere". But in watching this 10 year old documentary, I was reminded that Microsoft doesn't innovate? Let's go back. DOS, bought it. Windows, copied it. WebTV, bought it. XBox, copied it. Office, copied it. And yet, look where they are. Look what they have accomplished. Look at the number of millionaires and billionaires they have created. It's remarkable. So much for brains over market braun. I think it is an example of the other tagline, "Innovation Happens Elsewhere". I was at Apple when Windows 3.0 came out. The Mac was far superior (in my opinion and the opinion of many others) to a clone running Windows, but it kicked our asses in the market.

That's not all that jumped out at me during my viewing of a 10 year old documentary. It was how the whole thing got started. User groups and open source development models formed what is now the PC industry dominated by Microsoft. Is that irony or brilliance?

Posted at 05:07PM Feb 27, 2006 by sarad in General  |