The future is now
The latest flick from my Netflix queue is The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires. This was a documentary on the rise of the personl computer industry done around 1996, the Jurassic period in computer epochs.
The narrator was Robert X. Cringely who used to write a weekly column about the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley. He writes an online column for PBS.org and has very insightful things to say about the industry. I read his writings every week. This week he explains why Jobs is good for Disney. Read it. Then go buy stock in Apple. Jobs is just that good.
Anyway, back to the DVD. The story ends in 1996. Windows 95 was just released and the internet had yet to become the ubiquitous thing it is today. At the end, Cringely goes over the fortunes of the main players: Gates, Microsoft, Jobs, and Apple.
In 1996, Apple’s fortunes were down and it looked as if the end was near. Steve Jobs was 10 years in exile from Apple after being unceremoniously dumped in 1986. He was just the CEO of a little animation company Pixar. Oh and also of a small startup NeXT computing.
In 1996, Bill Gates was the richest man in America. Microsoft was the dominant computer company. It was good to be a Microserf.
In 1996, Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, preached the joy of the internet and the future of computing as a thin client connected to the Web. The PC was not in the picture.
What happened in the PC industry in those 10 years until now?
Microsoft still got bigger. Is still the 100lb gorilla of the personal computer industry. Apple did not fail. It has become a major player in the new computing world order. Bill Gates is a successful philanthropist and is the richest man in the world. Larry Ellison is a nobody. Steve Jobs is now the head of Disney.
Cringely closes the show with an acknowledgement that the industry will always be changing. He said that it would take 30 years for society to find uses for technology that has been introduced. In 1996, the personal computing industry had been around for about 20 years. He said he would like to revisit the Silicon Valley players in 10 years. It is now 2006. I wonder what he will find?
One Reply to “The future is now”
Comments are closed.
What happedned to Oracle damn microsoft crushed those guys