IBM vs Mac (old news but relevant)... The struggle for dominance!

Because this class has a primary focus on popular culture I can only assume that owning a computer is popular culture. It may have become ubiquitous in modern society to actually own one. This was not always the case. In the late 1970’s and early 80’s there was a huge technological war and computers were not available, at least to my knowledge, in abundance like they are today (same thing can be said about cell phones). By war I mean economical and financial war, nothing like the violence I have explained about in the last two or three blog things I’ve written. Pirates of the Silicon Valley was a movie directed by Martyn Burke displayed this re-enactment of the war on the big screen in 1999. This film touched on the experimentation and race to be the first company between IBM (now Microsoft) and Apple Macintosh (now Mac) to have the first computer on the market. What is most amazing about this whole “war” was the fact that both company founders Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, knew that this in fact would be the future of society. This in fact would present to the public the ideal popular culture. In as I sit here and type on this computer I realize that my life is so much easier than that of my parents. The war that I speak about was not fully realized by society until 1984 when Steve Jobs created the commercial based off of George Orwell’s novel “1984”. There is a link to the youtube version below. What makes this commercial so significant and put Apple Macintosh on the market and a healthy competitor was the fact that it explained to the public that the IBM was geared towards a more conservative generation, a safe way of putting it. Whereas the Apple Macintosh was the down to earth, more savvy, easy to use at home operating system. If you wanted a system this was it. The point I’m trying to make here is that anything can become main stream so long as the society of which it is introduced accepts it and lets it flourish. Popular culture is simply not black and white, yes or no, it is a constantly evolving way of life.

“1984” commercial for Apple Macintosh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8