Geekwhat.com

so i’ve been thinking lately about the path towards achieving
something great.. of fulfilling a beautiful idea.. of challenging the
status quo, the current competition, and rising to the top. let’s
look at some cases in the past:

1) bill gates forms microsoft after buying an OS from some no-name
and tweaks it. the OS competes with apple (who was credited with
offering the first operable OS — even though it was from xerox labs,
but let’s not go off on a tangent). microsoft dominates in PC market
share to this day.

2) google uses its high profile to compete with yahoo maps & mapquest
by offering google maps. offers a pretty innovative interface and
adds the satellite feature. becomes popular — to be the standard i
presume.

3) apple uses screen interface patented by creative, inc. to perfect
their ipod mp3 player, wipes out all mp3 player competition in the
market. ipod = success (understatement).

now, what do each of these items have in common?
in each situation, the winning/dominating party reaches victory by
improving a concept that already exists. ok, this may be obvious..
but my point is that it is truly interesting that in many cases, new
companies or individuals eventually end up competing (and possibly
dominating) those who they used to admire or who used to be at the
top. for instance, apple was at the peak of their game in the
1970s.. but gates came around and saw the potential of software..
“borrowed” apple’s idea for an OS and capitalized on it.. even jobs
says that apple is not afraid to take good ideas. another instance -
the recent court case where creative, inc. was credited with the
patent for the ipod screen interface.. or how about napster founder
shawn fanning popularizing the p2p file-sharing concept in the late
90s… he was a huge fan of metallica.. and then he gets sued by lars
ulrich (drummer) who is totally furious that fanning’s “toy” is
killing their salary.

i think situations like these are very interesting and it almost
creates a checks and balances system for the economy.. a good thing,
because ppl/companies will constantly attempt to rise to the top and
improve products.. which leads to heavier competition, which ousts
the crap-quality… well, paralleling this w/my personal situation..
i’ve been listening to jay’s new album recently and inevitably, i’ve
been, in my mind, comparing the quality of his new one with my own..
i am (as with any other mandopop audience member) definitely fond of
his music and am inspired by his ability to innovate chinese pop and
rise above the rest with his unmatched image.. i love the guy, but
the bottom line is that i will indeed be competing with him (as well
as others) next year when the album releases.. and it is extremely
important to understand the market i am getting into, the top
competitors, and most importantly, how to rise to the top and
compete. now this is very interesting because i have been listening
to various chinese pop artists for years now .. more as a fan than
anything else.. but now i am getting into this situation where i am
entering the same arena and the only way to survive is to compete!
well, gates was (and still is) criticized for stealing an idea in the
beginning and everyone is mad because he is now on top of the market
by a landslide.. but was it really based on the idea of stealing an
idea? or perhaps gates simply had a talent to foresee and predict
the computer revolution and his business frame of mind brought him to
this undeniably genius idea of perfecting a piece of software? it’s
going to be interesting releasing the music of this album to asia,
inevitably comparisons will arise.. but this competition thing is
really a funny thing…

Share This