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The IBM PC was introduced on August 12, 1981. At the time I was 15 but I was already an avid Apple II user who enjoyed programming in assembly language. I must say that I didn’t pay much attention to the announcement. After all, it was just another boring monochrome computer. However, it soon became clear that the PC was a commercial success and a clear threat to Apple. The truth is that, like most teenagers, I couldn’t care less about the business market. As long as Apple could maintain their lead in the education and home markets, I would be happy.

In 1983, however a new threat emerged, the IBM PCjr. This product was squarely aimed at the market that Apple had dominated for years, at least in the U.S. That is when I started to hate IBM. I felt that they were forcing me to switch to a platform that wasn’t as exciting against my will. Of course, years later the same anger made me revolt against Microsoft and I progressively started to forget about IBM. That is a good thing by the way because I have just celebrated my tenth anniversary at IBM. Of course it helped a lot that I have always worked at IBM’s Software Group, a division that is operating system agnostic and allows customers to choose their preferred computing environment.

Today, almost 23 years after the introduction of the IBM PCjr, Apple is the most valuable computer maker in the world. What has changed? We now live in a world ruled by consumers, not corporate suits. Consumers want exciting new products, not boring, barely functional products. That is good. Some may complain that teenagers are driving the consumer electronics industry but I am ecstatic. I still remember why I was so excited by Apple as a teenager. The reasons I had then were not driven by style or peer pressure, they were driven by a passion for radical new products that made no compromises to achieve greatness. In general teenagers do not tolerate mediocrity as well as adults because they are not scared by change. That is why Apple is successful now with a new generation. They are fighting the establishment with superior products and this is a battle teenagers can perfectly relate to.

However, make no mistake, this is not just a marketing gimmick. Unlike Pepsi who wanted to artificially create a generational gap with their “Pepsi generation” campaign, Apple decided to focus on creating exciting new products that have since been adopted by a new generation. That is why it worked.

Today is a date I will remember. It is the day I have been waiting for since IBM announced that we would be selling our PC division to Lenovo. I just got a memo that describes a procedure to purchase a Mac as my primary computer. At this point it is not clear wether this initiative will be limited to the U.S. or be more global in scope, but it is certainly another crack in Microsoft’s armor since I understand that IBM is Microsoft’s largest Windows and Office customer. Way to go IBM!

A couple of days ago, without much fanfare a great new Mac application, Pixelmator was released. Despite the relatively lack of interest of the mainstream Mac press, this is major news.

Despite what graphic pros may say, Pixelmator is a direct competitor to Photoshop. Granted, it does not offer yet advanced capabilities such as 16 bit per channel images or even RAW support (although it seems that this particular feature will be included later this year in a future update), but for most of us, Pixelmator, with its great user interface, small memory footprint and perfect integration with Core Image, is a perfect replacement for the much more expensive Adobe product.

Personally I see this announcement, as the culmination of Apple’s strategy to reduce their dependency on Adobe without having to create a Photoshop competitor themselves. It is probably a surprise to many that it took so much time for developers to use Core Image to create a photo editor. After all, Core Image is available since Mac OS 10.4 which was released two and a half years ago. Apple had done most of the hard work by providing a powerful API to easily composite layers and support non-destructive filters. Why did it then take so much time to create such a product? Well, it seems that everyone believed that Apple would use Core Image to create their own Photoshop competitor. Competing against Adobe is difficult enough but if you have to take on both Adobe and Apple that is a really scary thought. That is why I am not really surprised that Pixelmator was created by two young brothers who probably have not much to lose, even if this project does not become an instant hit. However, I sincerely hope that their app becomes extremely popular. They deserve it and the Mac community needs more innovative developers like them who are willing to take risks. I have already paid my US$59 license. Will you?