金融时报:艰苦新世界中的微软苹果

艰苦新世界中的微软苹果

Jason Pontin，麻省理工学院《科技评论》杂志总编。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

smug [smʌg] n./adj.自鸣得意的

OS 操作系统operating system

tutelary ['tjuːtɪlərɪ] adj.监护的/n.守护神

bean counters 账房先生、会计

Microsoft and Apple in a tough new world (715 words)

There is a smug maxim in Silicon Valley and the places that imitate it: “To survive, you must destroy your company every x years” (where x varies according to how much the speaker wants to stress the pace of technological change). Sometimes attributed to Intel’s former chief executive Andy Grove, it is a maxim more often repeated than observed. But it can be a lovely and startling thing when a large, publicly traded company takes a big bet by replacing its core product.

Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system, which went on sale last Friday, is the most dramatic gamble by a technology company since Intel abandoned the memory market to make semiconductors in the 1980s. Windows is a civilisational tool; there are more than 1bn Windows users around the world but when, after being given a new personal computer by their IT manager or buying a new device for themselves, those users boot up the new OS, they will recognise nothing.

Gone is the familiar “Start” button and user interface Microsoft has used since it launched Windows 95, 17 years ago. In its place, users will find a screen of shifting colourful tiles. If they have set up a Microsoft account with Outlook, their email, calendar and contacts will appear automatically; if their Microsoft account is linked to Facebook, the faces of their Facebook friends will begin blinking in a People tile and the photos they have posted will float into a Live tile. To its new users, Windows 8 will seem as personal – and as non-corporate – as their smartphone or tablet computers. That is the whole idea.

Windows 8 can be used with a conventional personal computer with a mouse or touchpad, but doing so is confusing. The operating system works best with a touchscreen, where users can swipe tiles and icons. To show off the new functionality, Microsoft is selling its first computer, the Surface – a $499 touchscreen tablet whose cover is a small keyboard, so that the device can also function as a small laptop.

Windows 8 and Surface are elegant and innovative, not qualities one associates with Microsoft’s products. They are mostly the work of Steven Sinofsky, president of the company’s Windows division, who keeps a much-read blog at MSDN, the Microsoft developer network. There, defending the radical change in the design, he wrote: “The new Windows 8 user experience is no less than a bet on the future of computing, and stakes a claim to Windows’ role in that future.”

Last week the crush at Microsoft’s Times Square store reminded some of the crowds at the launch of an Apple product – which must have been Microsoft’s hope. But Mr Sinofsky’s bet also has the logic of desperation. A decade ago there were no competitors to Microsoft’s core business of developing and selling “platforms”, the software upon which other developers’ software must run and with which hardware must work. Today, the web is the platform for most computing and Apple’s iOS (the operating system of the iPhone and iPad) and Google’s Android are the platforms for mobile devices. The sharp edges between business and consumer computing have melted. Microsoft had no choice but to try something new.

It is instructive to compare the launch of Windows 8 and Surface with Apple’s most recent release, the iPad mini. There’s nothing wrong with the mini: for Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, it must seem to fill an important niche – the market for tablets that can be held comfortably in one hand, where Amazon’s Kindle and devices based on Android now dominate. But there’s nothing innovative about Apple’s small tablet. It’s just more of the same. One cannot imagine the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s departed CEO, taking any pride in the thing.

It is an interesting historical moment for the two founding companies of the personal computing revolution. Microsoft knows it is slowly dying but declines to accept its fate. Apple, flush with cash, does not yet have to admit that with the death of its tutelary genius, it has lost its way. But secretly, its executives, designers and developers must fear that something is badly wrong. Jobs always said that technology companies began to die when salespeople and bean counters started making the decisions.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What does the writer mean by saying "those users boot up the new OS, they will recognise nothing"?

A. Those who use Windows are generally not good at using computers.

B. Apple's OS is so different from Windows.

C. Windows is so good that other operating systems can hardly survive.

D. Windows has been enjoying a monopolistic position in operating system market.

答案(1)

2.Who is dominating the market for small tablet computers?

A. iPad

B. iPad mini

C. Kindle and Android tablets

D. Nobody is. It is a highly competitive market.

答案(2)

3."Microsoft had no choice but to try something new."

Which of the following can surport this?

A. Apple is threatening Microsoft's core business of selling "platforms".

B. The differences between business and personal computing are disappearing.

C. Apple and Google are dominating mobile OS market, Microsoft is a latecomer.

D. All of above.

答案(3)

4.Which of the following is not the writer's opinion?

A. The maxim “To survive, you must destroy your company every x years” is not practical.

B. Steve Jobs would be gald to see the launch of iPad mini.

C. Windows 8 and Surface do not inherit the usual Microsoft style.

D. The future pictures for Apple and Microsoft are vague.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：A.Windows has been enjoying a monopolistic position in operating system market.

解释：作者在第二段的意思是，微软的win8如同当年的英特尔一样，这是在革自己的命(dramatic gamble)。 因为已经有10亿以上的用户熟悉以开始按钮为特色的Windows系统。而现在公司的产品要大转向了。iOS是由苹果公司为iPhone开发的操作系统，也给iPhone、iPod touch以及iPad使用。

(2) 答案：C.Kindle and Android tablets

解释：文章倒数第二段中，作者说，蒂姆·库克很有必要fill an important niche – the market for tablets that can be held comfortably in one hand. 也就是说虽然iPad热卖，但是可以拿在一只手中操作的小平板电脑市场现在是亚马逊Kindle和安卓平板主导。苹果公司因此推出iPad mini，希望在这个市场进行竞争。

(3) 答案：D.All of above.

解释：理解了这句话，你就理解了本文作者的主要观点：微软推出win8和平板电脑是为形势所迫，被迫应战。

(4) 答案：A.Steve Jobs would be gald to see the launch of iPad mini.

解释：B不正确的，乔布斯才不会推出iPad mini这种没什么创新的产品呢。A是正确的，作者在第一段就说这个很酷的口号more often repeated than observed. C也正确，win8和Surface不像微软以前的产品，它们elegant and innovative.至于D，本文的标题就已经清楚表达了。