The big stink that came out of the Leander Kahney article about “How Apple Got Everything Right …” got some of the most prominent writers scrambling for their keyboards. Some were against the comparison between Google and Apple, and some were against the people against the comparison. A simple search on Google reveals exactly how many people had how much say about it. Personally, I couldn’t care less about any comparisons being made inside the Silicon Valley, but when two of my favourite software companies came under scrutiny from two extreme ends of the mob, I just had to have a look and see what the big fuss was about. While I am not going to do a Gruber on anybody’s write-up with an extended “Jackass” version, I will take the neutral stance from a consumers point of view who doesn’t go into the history of companies, and just judges them by their present status.

Don’t compare Google and Apple to anyone

There, I said it. You cannot compare Google and Apple, simply because they are completely different companies. Heck, if you’re going to keep Google as the standard by which you’re going to judge successful companies, your theory will start hitting snags the moment somebody dissects them. The simplest example is Microsoft. Fine, we don’t like the Redmond vampires, but by no limit of imagination are they an un-successful company. Like it was once said, “Every move that Microsoft makes is like a tidal wave, the ripples of which reach out to the various niches and broad segments of the computer industry.” But everything they do has the stench of “evil” by Google’s definition. In fact, I can count 4 points that they shamelessly break. But has that made them stop and rework their strategy? Na-huh!

You cannot compare Google and Apple to any company in the market today, simply because they have guiding philosophies that have evolved from the way they have been treated by the industry. Google has hit gold wherever they’ve gone. Even their worst product has millions of users. They made searching what it is today (even if Yahoo! started it), and is the undisputed market leader. When you are the top of the mountain with breathing space, the way you tackle the people still climbing is completely different than you would if you were climbing too.

Apple is on the other end of the spectrum, having seen the best and worst the industry can offer. From almost going bankrupt, to fraternising with the enemy to keep themselves alive. The firing of one of the foremost visionaries of our time and their biggest advantage, and then the slow and hard walk uphill to gain what they lost, Apple has literally seen it all. Whatever it does today is born out of how Steve Jobs perceives the industry — unforgiving, unrelenting and most of all, unreliable. He knows that you cannot sit on your past laurels and expect everybody to keep gushing over what you’ve done. That explains his commitment to quality, and to provide updates upon upgrades to his existing arsenal.

Comparing these two companies to each other is showing idiocity beyond imagination. Not the same market, not the same philosophies, not the same yard-stick. If Apple is doing well today, it is because of the months and years of hard work coupled with “evil” planning of products and strategies. I say it is okay to be evil today, because the climber at the top of that mountain is not going to step aside and let you plant your flag where his stood a second ago. If a company is not being aggressive, it is not taking itself seriously enough.

Apple’s wrongs

All that said, Kahney’s jibes at how “evil” Apple actually is, are nothing but shots at Jobs’ management ethics and practices. Kahney writes:

Everybody is familiar with Google’s famous catchphrase, “Don’t be evil.” It has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that — proponents say — are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms. Trust decisions to the wisdom of crowds. Treat your employees like gods.

It has become a mission statement for the Valley? Sure, it is cited in a lot of write-ups, but nowhere in recent memory have I actually seen a company follow the rules. Come to think of it, I remember even Google breaking its own rules. From censoring searches in China, plugging their own products to users who search for related information, Google has done its fair share of “evil”. Did we break out into a frenzy? Yes we did. Did that deter Google? Of course not, because even Google knows that being a goody-goody never paid bills. What should be noted however is that Google did all those while it was the market leader.

Apple never held the market. Their boat has always moved upstream. How on Earth does it matter what their way of working is? If (to quote Kahney) “by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed” is the method that works for Apple, then so be it. Even now, with 91% of the operating system market, Microsoft “leaks” alphas and betas of their new systems. It works for them. Let them be! Jobs realised that trying to push a new product into a dead market (for new players) was not going to help. He took a backdoor. By playing to his strengths and heavily promoting the iPod, he brought Apple’s name back. He correctly realised that the problem wasn’t having a presence. It was having an identity. The moment one product from a heard-of company became a bestseller, the effects would ripple back to the main company, which Apple could then use to pitch its other products. “Like the iPod? Look what else we make! We know what you like, so why don’t you give these a try?” You can call the backdoor an illegal route, but now that people have been woken up to the Mac, do you feel Jobs shouldn’t have done it? Just because something isn’t the ‘right’ way to do something, doesn’t make it wrong. Either way, right and wrong are subjective. I say right, you’re welcome to say wrong.

No other company in the history of this industry will ever be able to pull off an Apple. Let’s be serious. Jobs = Apple. Just like there will no second Jobs, there will be no second Apple. And that is not just because of what they’ve achieved, but also because of what they are doing, and will continue to do. In a cut-throat world, it matters little how you reached where you have reached, because when you do get there, people just look at you for what you are and what you are doing, not what and where you have been, or what you have done.