• 

• Linux Foundation Legal

  The Linux Foundation's legal program provides the Linux ecosystem with important information on licenses, standards and patent issues, reducing confusion and fostering further innovation and adoption of Linux.

• Categories

  • Legal

• Archives

  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • September 2007

• Subscribe RSS

In his later years, the American Jazz Age author F. Scott Fitzgerald ruefully observed that “There are no second acts in American Lives.” That now-famous verdict was based upon the personal experience of the once celebrated author, by then a self-described “Hollywood Hack,” reduced to writing B Movie scripts for current income.

If there is a current exception to Fitzgerald’s axiom in the world of technology, it must certainly be Steve Jobs. The company he founded in a garage with partner Steve Wozniak quickly seized the lead in the PC revolution, reaching $100 million in revenues by 1980. Later the same year, Apple launched the largest IPO since Ford Motor Company went public. But the introduction of the IBM PC and the rise of Microsoft wrought a reversal in Apple’s fortunes, and in May of 1985, the man he had recruited to be his mentor ousted Jobs from his own company.

The rest, of course, is the stuff of which legends are made. Jobs attempted to vindicate his vision in 1985 by founding a new company that he unsubtly dubbed NeXT Computer. But NeXT never found its market: by 1993, it had sold only c. 50,000 machines. Then, at last, Jobs’ fortunes began to improve.

In 1996, NeXT was acquired by Apple, which had itself been largely wandering in the wilderness during the intervening years. By acquiring NexT, Apple not only obtained the rights to a new operating system, but it reacquired Jobs as well. Moreover, not long after leaving Apple, Jobs had bought an animation studio from LucasFilms for $5 million, plus a $5 million cash infusion into the studio itself. He later renamed that studio Pixar, and it went on to become wildly successful, making Jobs a very wealthy man twice over.

With the fantastic success of the iPod and iTunes, the successful launch of the tectonically innovative iPhone and the rejuvenation of Mac sales, Jobs now seems poised on the cusp of proving Fitzgerald wrong to the point of stomping on the author’s grave. But will he in fact pull it off, leading Apple to dominate the mobile platform of the future after surrendering the emerging PC platform of the past to his rivals?

Given Jobs’ announcements of yesterday, I’m afraid that history may be about to repeat itself instead. Here’s why.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Comments

• Andy Updegrove

  

  Andy Updegrove is a partner and founder of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a Boston-based technology law firm, and has represented and helped structure more than 80 worldwide standard setting, open source, promotional and advocacy consortia over the past 20 years. He has also represented hundreds of both emerging as well as established technology companies, and is the founder and editor of both the popular website http://www.consortiuminfo.org and the widely-read Standards Blog

• Karen Copenhaver

  

  Karen Copenhaver is a partner in Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP ‘s Business & Technology practice focusing on technology transfer and licensing of intellectual property with a specific emphasis on open source business models. Most recently, Copenhaver was executive vice president and general counsel at Black Duck Software, Inc.