January 22, 2005
Speaking before a small audience gathered in one of five Starbucks located on the computer and softeware company's Cupertino campus Jobs, dressed in his trademark jeans and black turtleneck went on to highlight the development process behind iSue. “Apple engineers worked closely with Apple lawyers in the development of the software and the templates. Both groups brought to the project tremendous knowledge and a wealth of experience.” Jobs demonstrated how with iSue even a novice non-lawyer could quickly and easily file a suit for negligence, medical malpractice and product liability. The Biggest applause came when Jobs informed the gathered crowd that Apples recent suit against the author of the web site ThinkSecret was filed using iSue.
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Regular readers of this site will know that I am a big fan of Apple Computers. I love the hardware, the OS, and the software. I am not necessarily a big fan of Apple the Company and its suit against ThinkSecret. I am sympathetic to their goal in the suit. Confidential trade information was released to someone who made it public and Apple wants to find out where those leaks are. They are suing ThinkSecret author Nicholas Ciarelli to compel him to reveal where he got information about upcoming product announcements weeks before they were made public. I understand their desire to staunch the flow of confidential information, even though in this case it could reasonably be argued that the company benefited from the leak. If the information had come out months earlier, allowing competitors to potentially react preemptively to Apple's efforts the impact could have been significant.
Apple made the following statement regarding the suit
We believe that ThinkSecret solicited information about unreleased Apple products from these individuals, who violated their confidentiality agreements with Apple by providing details that were later posted on the internet. Apple's DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success.First of all, if I ever have to hear about some company's DNA again, I'm going to want to paradigm shift them so far out of the box the net net is they will never be on the same page again. Secondly, there has got to be a better way to solve their security problems than sending their lawyers after a fan of the company whose publishing of the information generated a good deal of pre-announcement buzz that likely helped them sell more computers.
The point has been made. It's time to Force Quit iSue.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 04:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Posted by: Paladin at January 26, 2005 12:14 PM (wRSNk)
Seems to me, the people Apple should be going after are their own employees with loose lips, not what is basically a news agency. Apple has filed a LOT of lawsuits in the past, many of which were nothing more than successful attempts to strangle competition. Lawsuits are a lousy way to get around having made poor buisness choices, and not just because they reduce your company's need to compete. They ultimately hurt the comsumer by eliminating the innovation that can only spring from a smaller company that is more willing to gamble with new ideas. Bigger, well established corporations are fiscally unable to come up with the next great must-have invention, simply because they have too much invested in their current product.
A perfect example is IBM. When they released the PC, it was already yesterday's technology. So why did it sell? As their own ads said, and everyone else was happy to repeat, "IBM has legitimized personal computing." Nothing was innovative, except the use of IBM's name. All the best inventiveness was taking place in companies who acted like they had nothing to lose, like Sinclair, Atari, Commodore, and yes... Apple!
Posted by: Mike at January 30, 2005 06:18 AM (5qKGR)
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