~ TCWhat does Steve Jobs know that Albert Einstein didn’t? Einstein posited that a closed system would become stagnant over time… . Jobs may have to accept that Apple’s next wave of growth–or energy, as Einstein might have put it–depends on syncing up his products and platforms with those of his competitors.
In an age of convergence and simplification, customers are ever more insistent that computers, phones, TV, and music systems work together. For them, being “open” isn’t about sharing patent information or computer code but about compatibility and seamlessness, from the phones in their pockets to the movies playing on their flat screens… . Winning outright is a very tall order, of course. It means coming up with a self-contained system so beautifully functional that a critical mass of consumers are willing to enter that world and never leave
