IBM monotheism

[MalignD at aol.com]

Although a useful primer on how to bend one's private morality to fit the 
moment and situation, this post makes some errors of history (if I may use 
that term), worth correcting.

<<IBM muscled in on Apple's innovation (and then they leaped ahead by 
stealing ideas from Xerox) >>

No ideas were stolen from Xerox by IBM or anyone else, to my knowledge.  The 
technology used in the Macintosh--the mouse, clickable icons, etc. were 
developed by Xerox in Palo Alto.  The PARC developers couldn't sell the Xerox 
parent on the value of what they were doing and Xerox failed to enter the 
computer market.  Apple then licensed the technology and used it to build, 
first, the Lisa, then the Macintosh.

As to leaping ahead, I can't think of a time post-Macintosh when anyone would 
have described IBM computers as having leapt ahead.  IBM was the opposite of 
innovative.  And once hardware innovation took a secondary role to software 
innovation, the game had gone elsewhere.  IBM's various forays into software 
development have been embarrassments.