Wednesday during an interview, Acer founder Stan Shih took a slight jab at Apple, comparing its products--namely the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch--to mutant viruses. According to the exec, its difficult to find a cure for said viruses in the short-term, however he believes that the PC industry will eventually find a way to contain the infection, and become immune to its effects.
However Shih didn't completely devalue Steve Jobs and his accomplishments. He noted the success of Apple's innovation and creativity through iTunes and the introduction of apps. Shih said that PC vendors need to follow the lead and focus less on hardware and more on innovative software in order to grab a portion of the growing market.
Shih also added that Apple actually deserves a little respect. While PC manufacturers have evolved naturally and developed products "in a more solid way," the Apple boss has taken a different strategy, looking for a "revolution." But despite Apple's success, Shih believes that the PC market will eventually come out on top, as history dictates that a natural evolution builds a stronger industry backbone.
During the interview, Shih also compared Microsoft’s Windows against Apple's Macintosh OS, and then eventually into the war between VHS and Betamax. Both examples compare the open platform approach against a closed platform approach, with the latter option apparently providing a far less market share than the former open Windows platform group. He even noted the emergence of Google's open Android platform as a tool that could help isolate Apple in the future.
Towards the end of the interview, Shih spelled out a grim future for the PC market here in the States. According to the Acer founder, US-based vendors will eventually abandon the market in the long term and turn to the services industry. He even cited IBM's sale of its PC department to Lenovo, deeming it as a sign of things to come.
