There were three major innovations on display. The first was Ethernet, the technologies developed by Bob Metcalfe for creating local area networks. Like Gates and other pioneers of personal computers, Jobs was not very interested—certainly not as interested as he should have been—in networking technology. He was focused on the ability of computers to empower individuals rather than to facilitate collaboration. The second innovation was object-oriented programming. That, likewise, did not grab Jobs, who was not a programmer. What caught his attention was the graphical user interface featuring a
...more
