Apple Loves to Hold a Grudge

Gather 'round while I put Apple Inc. on the psychiatrist sofa. This company appears to constantly need a villain -- some company to look down on from Apple's moral high ground. What would Freud say about that?

In the early days of Apple, of course, the company's Evil Empires were International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp., as encapsulated by two famous marketing campaigns. (Yes, children, IBM did make personal computers once upon a time.) IBM and Microsoft were convenient foils. They were lumbering, vicious and uncool -- the opposite of what Apple wanted to be.