Between Enderle and Tantrum, where are they now?

Microsoft was probably one of the earliest to get developer support, but that's all.

by the way, Multiplan was NOT released in januari 84, but almost a year later.

the original mac only had Mac Paint and Mac Write.

i don't see how that fact can be transformed into “Microsoft helped Apple write mac os” (after the edit), or, Microsoft wrote mac os.

astonishing.

1. Apple I, II, II computers (not equal) Macintosh computers
2. PPC Processor (not equal) Macintosh computers
3. Creating applications (not equal) creating an Operating System
4. Providing a programming language (not equal) creating an Operating System
5. Providing applications and programming languages (not equal) Helping create an Operating System
6. Palm (not equal) Apple spin off

I have no qualm with Enderle. Don't know him, heard of him but haven't read much of his stuff. As a columnist in America he is, of course, free to write what ever he wants.

As reader, I expect facts presented in an article – even opinion pieces – be true. Especially if they are used as supporting elements of an argument or examples of the “big picture” that the article is supposed to be about.

Correcting a statement in an article with information that is still inaccurate is disappointing and poor journalism.

Is there flaming in the comments? Sure. But there are also plenty of thoughtful posts that directly contradict Enderle's baseless contentions.

I have direct knowledge within Palm at the time that Enderle is talking about.

Palm hired maybe 5 or 6 developers from the Newton team. They were *good* developers, but *they* came to work on an already-established product. There were other former Apple developers that worked at Palm, but it was the same situation for them. They certainly didn't come as a spin-off from Apple, nor did they bring anything from Apple other than personal opinions. The Legal people wouldn't have tolerated anything else.

Other than that, there was absolutely *no* connection between Apple and Palm.

Mr. Enderle, I now know from first-hand information that your articles consist mainly of poorly-researched drivel and wild conjecture; unfortunately, I have no time for writing such as this so I will be avoiding your tagline in the future. Your loss.

Personally, I think it's hilarious how you don't even have the guts to respond to any of the comments, which are clearly more well thought than your article, which is still riddled with stuff you made up.

Do you see “Microsoft helped develop the MacOS”? No, you don't. Just like Microsoft's partners don't contribute to the design of Windows (except from a user/suggestion perspective, remember: Microsoft puts in what features they see fit to add), Microsoft did NOT help design the Mac OS.

I have to think you were under the influence of mind-altering medication when you wrote this article.

The problem here is that PDAs are a niche market. Phones are not. Unless you already use a PDA, a PDA/cell phone is not compelling for the price. Adding media players to the mix just illustrates how inferior the Treo is compared to a dedicated unit. I mean, does anyone who owns a Treo say “Wow, a camera too, I guess I don't have to buy a digital camera”. Of course not. You wouldn't use a Treo to take photos of your next family outing and print them out. Convergance devices will be niche devices for the forseeable future: Until the convergance device can equal the quality of the stand-alone device. And this may never happen.

Would I buy a Treo? Maybe. If it were priced more like a phone. And did not have a camera, mp3 player, etc.

I win!

I think you're worse than Enderle. Maybe you ARE Enderle. You take every legitimate point that I've made and tried to turn it around to mean something other than what I said.

You aren't worthy of any more attention.

But Bill would laugh in Endrele's face to hear him say that Microsoft helped Apple write the MacOS. That is such a ludicrous notion in the face of the documented history of how the Mac OS developed. Check the facts, you'll see.

What MS did was write the BASIC OS that Apple licensed for the Apple II. Not the Mac.

Bottom line, it's a coward's way out to add the world “helped” when what you should have done is correct it and hearken back to when MS actually did something for Apple with BASIC. That's a perfectly legitimate point.

But it was Apple that created the personal computer OS that lead the way to what we all use nowadays. And to insult the developers of the MacOS by implying that they couldn't have done it without Microosoft's help is sad and pathetic.

You're just totally lost, aren't you? This conversation get a little too abstract for you? Maybe it's past your nap time?

What I showed you, after you claimed that no one uses Macs any more, is that none less than your precious Microsoft uses Macs to show off how their wondrous Xbox 36o will look when (if) it ever gets to market.

And apparently they aren't too proud of it, either, since they went to great pains to hide the Macs and make the showgoers think they were actually playing on an Xbox. Where's the honesty in that?

What's wrong with using a real Xbox? Is the problem that it's a poorly-designed, bug-ridden, virus-infected piece of crap that doesn't work well, just like every other Microsoft product out there? Or is it just that it doesn't work at all?

Apple builds great hardware and has led the way for Microsoft and other copycats in operating system development for 20 years. Microsoft doesn't innovate — it appropriates. As in, it takes.

I show you proof that Microsoft plays a shill game — they use Macs but claim it's an Xbox 360 so you'll think that's the quality you'll get when you buy an Xbox 360, and now you cry “Foul?”

Microsucks was hired by Jobs to write an application called 'Multiplan' for the original Mac that was rolled out in January of 1984. This was the first point and click GUI spreadsheet program. In 1985, Microsucks renamed it 'Excel' and within the same year rolled out an app called 'Word'. And those are the hard cold indisputable facts Jack. They, M$, had absolutely nothing to do with the development of the original MacOS. In fact, they stole it and Apple had them in court for six years. When the case arrived in front of the US Supreme Court…Apple lost the case once and for all. Due to a very vague working agreement with Microsoft for the creation of those original Mac OS apps for the original 128k Mac. Eleven years before the rollout of the first commercial version of Windows 95 based on those elements stolen from Apple's GUI. Enderle is a total idiot!! Enderle is to the world of technology as Ted Kennedy is to the world of politics. TOAST!

Nobody uses Macs, huh?

Check out this tradeshow expose on the real power behind the Xbox 360:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2420&p=5“ title=”http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2420&p=5“ target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i…

Sorry, dude… *almost* nobody uses Macs.

Who cares? Its a flipping commentary piece, he can write whatever he wants. Check out some of the commentary pieces at http://www.news.com“ title=”http://www.news.com“ target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.news.com they are just as bad. If you don't like Rob, don't read his articles. There is a reason why is on the advisory board for so many companies – he must be getting something right!

It's not a personal attack, it's about journalistic integrity and accuracy.

Despite his twisted and illogical reasoning, Rob may actually come to a valid conclusion every so often. But he distorts, slants and skews known history to conveniently support his conclusions at every step along the way.

It's Rob Enderle's complete lack of accuracy — and the fact that he doesn't bother to check his information before he makes these blatantly wrong assertions — that I disagree with.

If you read an article asserting that it was the United States who killed 6 million Jews, not Nazi Germany, you'd be outraged, right? Why? Because that's *not what happened*!

I rest my case.

fungku: “What crack are you smoking? It says Microsoft “helped” write the OS.”

Fungku, the article has been modified since it was originally posted. You're referring to the *modified* version of the article. The original version stated “… Microsoft wrote the first MacOS under contract to Apple nearly two decades ago …”, which is patently incorrect under any interpretation of that phrase, as anyone with a slight knowledge of the history of microcomputers would know.

The current wording, “… Microsoft helped Apple write the first MacOS under a project code named ?sand” …”, is only slightly less incorrect, as others have pointed out.

No one is denying that Microsoft was an important early Macintosh developer and supporter — no one could, because that's a historical fact — but that's not what Enderle said, either time. And if he can't support his argument with plainly written and accurate points, how are we supposed to take his conclusions seriously?

He *could* have written this: “… few seem to remember that Microsoft helped Apple launch the Macintosh by writing the some of the first important software applications for it over two decades ago …” — which would have supported his point as well as being factually accurate — but he apparently wasn't able to do so.

[But that wouldn't have supported his ultimate thesis -- that Apple is a failure because it didn't license the Mac OS (see the last sentence). Of course, this is the thesis of *every* Enderle article on Apple. It must be killing him that Apple's stock is at an all-time high this week.]

Oh, and fungku — re: “I have been in the software business for 7 years, with my first two at Microsoft” — That's nice, son. I worked for the company that developed Macintosh Pascal, under contract to Apple, in 1984-85, at the time the events we're discussing took place. I would guess that you were in preschool then. So don't try to teach the history of microcomputing by quoting a single web page when people who were actually there know better.

> Microsoft was in the apple game way before 1980. You referenced the same site as I did for the information.

You?re right, and I did so deliberately, so that everyone could see the spin that you?re trying to put on its content in order to try and justify yours and Rob Enderle?s distorted viewpoint.

You think that Microsoft is the be-all/end-all and the savior of modern society, and you distort every known fact in order to support the pathetic delusion that Microsoft did it first, was there first. I?m here to tell you that it just ain?t so.

> How could you miss text stating
> “Having worked closely with Apple during the development of the Macintosh”
> How can it get any clearer?

What?s clear from this statement is that Microsoft worked closely with Apple during the development of the Macintosh. Period. Since Apple *already had* the Macintosh when they approached Microsoft to write *application software*, I would interpret this sentence to mean that Microsoft worked closely with Apple *to develop application software* during the development of the Mac.

Nothing that has been published *anywhere* indicates that Microsoft had any involvement whatsoever in the development of the actual Macintosh OS.

> Hmm.. how about:
> [Microsoft] provided [AppleSoft Basic] in ROM on the popular Apple II Plus.

That?s a language, not an operating system. We?ve already established that in 1981, when Apple approached Microsoft to develop applications for the Mac, Microsoft was just getting around to *licensing* QDOS so they could sell it to IBM.

Get this through your head: when Apple went to Microsoft, MS was a *language vendor*. They had absolutely no experience writing operating systems. They had to purchase their first one from someone else! How can you blindly leap from that fact to asserting that Microsoft was suddenly so skilled that they were able to help Apple write a *graphical* operating system ? something MS had never even *considered* until Steve Jobs demoed it for them?

Remember, this is all happening in 1981. MS is midstream in procuring the license to QDOS so they can get a stranglehold on IBM, and all of a sudden Steve Jobs shows up with the Mac and says, ?Hey, check this out. Wanna write an application or two for this?? And Gates and company say, ?Oh, f*#k. This thing is gonna blow IBM right out of the water. Now what are we gonna do? I know: we?ll write a couple applications for it, and we?ll learn everything we can and steal what we can?t, and then we?ll come out with our *own* version!?

> No where does it say Microsoft wrote the OS.

That is true. Nowhere except here in Rob Enderle?s column does *anyone* claim that Microsoft wrote the Mac OS.

> according to Rob's article he isnt saying that. He said they helped Apple write the first OS.

Actually, yes, he did say that. Then he changed it to say that they had *helped* Apple write the OS.

> How can you ship languages for an OS thats never been shipped before if you dont collaberate with each other?

Let me put it this way. If I design a car ? a totally new design ? and then I contract you to build a radio for the car, does that mean that you helped me design the car? No! It means that you built the radio for the car! Nothing more, nothing less! I might have had to let you see the blueprints, maybe give you a working dashboard so that you could make sure the radio fit as it was intended, but does that mean you helped build the car? No!

Microsoft was contracted to build *application software* for the Mac. The fact that they had BASIC and MultiPlan available on the first day the Mac shipped simply means they met a deadline. I?m sure APPLE was very happy about that. I, too, would be happy if I didn?t have to wait six months for you to deliver my car radio.

> You truely are ignorant.

Spoken like a true dropout. Learn to spell.

“There were four things in the technology industry that were generally seen as impossible: The first, was a shift to Intel by Apple, the second, a shift to Microsoft by Palm, with the third, being a shift to Microsoft by Sun and the fourth, a shift to Microsoft by Apple. We could argue that there is now a fifth: A shift to Open Source by Microsoft. Of these five, two have now happened and three, are related to Apple (Palm, spun off of Apple). It is interesting to note, that Sun is now getting along with Microsoft and Microsoft is leaning more and more towards an Open Source model over time.”

I think that these Apple fans need to calm down and stop the personal attacks, I mean seriously. This discussion has gone downhill. I am really ashamed of my fellow Apple users.

That has to be one of the funniest things I've read in quite some time. Oh, the irony.

fungku says: “How could you miss text stating 'Having worked closely with Apple during the development of the Macintosh'”

“During” does not equal “on.”

The information flowed in the opposite direction you imply. Apple made information and code available to Microsoft to assure that the apps Microsoft was creating would run.

How can it get any clearer?

Hmm.. how about:
[Microsoft] provided [AppleSoft Basic] in ROM on the popular Apple II Plus.

No where does it say Microsoft wrote the OS, and according to Rob's article he isnt saying that. He said they helped Apple write the first OS. It doesnt mean they wrote 90%, 80%, 20%, or even 5%. It just means they collaberated. They HAD to if:

“The company shipped two products -BASIC and Multiplan- on the same day the Macintosh was introduced…”

How can you ship languages for an OS thats never been shipped before if you dont collaberate with each other? Do you think that during that time they didnt help each other? Do you think Microsoft just wrote basic blindly hoping that it would run? Dont you think Apple was very eager to get software that was ready to ship the same day, and would work those developers, taking suggestions from them to add things to the OS, fixing bugs they find, etc?

You truely are ignorant.