The recently deceased Apple honcho Steve Jobs had a Manichean take on the digital marketplace. As he saw it, Apple — with its closed systems; its elegant simplicity; and its organic, innovative thoroughly integrated hardware and software — reflected the good, spiritual world of the light.
On the dark, material side of the digital divide — with its open operating systems, all promiscuously licensed, and its imitative, inorganic content and applications — loomed Microsoft.