Without them Apple products will not be what they are today because retailers preferred to sell Apple’s competitors’ products because of higher margins.

MS was supreme in 1998. No wonder that Steve Job declared the OS wars over. This did not mean that Microsoft had won — not permanently. Competition never ends, but it can change its form. Steve Jobs negotiated a truce which allowed Apple to recover from its wounds and build a new offensive.

I won’t belabor the details, but it all comes down to vision.

Microsoft and Apple were built on different business models. The Windows PC was marketed on the vision of the checklist. Apple could never win against a checklist which ignored ease of use, quality, esthetics and consumer preferences. It could not prevail until the checklist was destroyed. Apple, in the 90s, had almost destroyed itself trying to compete on Microsoft’s turf.

MS had sewn up the existing markets. Apple’s only recourse was to create and capture new markets. Steve Jobs asked, “What’s a computer for?” His answer saved the company.

Apple became very secretive; Microsoft forced this on them. MS had been able to hear about an Apple product when it was a third completed. The nature of software developments is that the last 10% of code takes five times as long as the first 80%. Microsoft had repeatedly gotten a placeholder out the door before Apple could deliver a finished product. This appealed to the checklist oriented users; they didn’t care that MS’s placeholder software didn’t work and wouldn’t for another two years of development.

Steve Jobs used this exigency to build a new type of software organization. His new Apple, in 1997, was rebuilt on small groups, lead by a central planning authority. Steve became the arbiter of taste; he was ruthless in pruning development. Each group was isolated from each other and assigned tasks where they didn’t know the big picture. Although this caused problems in coordination, the technique worked for Apple.

This approach was applied to NeXTstep as it was turned into Mac OSX. The operating system architecture became one of layers and modules, rather than being monolithic. This meant that small groups could perfect their portion.

The foundations of Mac OSX were based on Unix. Partly, this was because Apple didn’t have the resources to reinvent the wheel. It bought, borrowed and stole what it needed to compete. NeXTstep was already built on Unix. It just needed to be made Mac-like. This was necessary to move the developers and users off of the original Mac OS. This took six rancorous years.

Apple laid down technological pieces in the market five to ten years before they were needed. The technical press was often confused by what Apple was doing. Apple built a solid foundation before anyone knew what the structure would look like. Only when the final piece was played did anyone know — Quicktime, Itunes, ITunes Music store, Safari, the Apple stores, etc.

Even then, the technical pundits scoffed — it was doomed to fail, because it was so unlike MS. Being unlike MS became an asset when you are pursuing new markets, rather than competing for old ones.

Persistence and vision has carried the day. The chief arbiter of that vision is now surrendering control. No wonder that people are upset that Steve Jobs is stepping away. Beating Microsoft was never Steve’s goal, nor was high Market Share or Market Cap. Steve pursued an idealization of excellence. Many people fear that this goal will be neglected now that Steve is backing away. They may have no clear idea of what excellence means to Apple now.

Success is often corrupting. Will Apple rest on its laurels? The final people, who are not using computers, are the non-technological and anti technological. Will Apple stop pushing the edge to gain customers among them?