Egos

I was going to write a post about unified communication and the parallels with the current state of the art to the early (multiple phone company) era. But current events lead me to a different topic.

The ... discussion (that's a polite word) ... about Apple products and Adobe Flash has been going on for several weeks. Apple's iPhone 4.0 release included a contract that forbids Flash and lots of other tech from the platform. After the initial release, there was a large outcry from the hacker community, and Apple was not on the winning side.

The furor had passed, and one would think that Apple (and Steve Jobs) would have the acumen to simply carry on and offer their products to the world (Flash-less and all).

But no. Steve Jobs posted a blog entry about Flash on the Apple platform. In doing so, he has stirred the blogosphere.

Perhaps he thinks that no publicity is bad publicity. Perhaps he thinks that the additional blogging will help Apple in their quest for market share.

Steve Jobs is wrong.

The responses to his latest post have been against him. Adobe's response post is restrained, professional, and respectful. The first thing that Jobs has accomplished is that he has made Adobe look good, even trustworthy.

Unlike the first round, which saw anti- and pro-Apple posts, this second round has been uniformly against Apple. The Apple supporters have moved on, or perhaps become bored. If Jobs wants to tweak his opposition, he has succeeded. His second accomplishment has been to invigorate his detractors, with no gain from his supporters.

Apple cannot afford to lose the hacker community. Microsoft has, and it is hurting them. Adobe may have problematic software, but hackers can fix that with the right support from Adobe. Apple has crap-tastic software too (think of iTunes for Windows), but without the hackers they have no chance of surviving.

Steve Jobs, take your ego, put it in a box, and store it in your basement. (Or attic, or self-storage.) Or live knowing that the Golden Age of Apple has just come to an end.