乔布斯传 第126期:过程就是奖励

 Competition

竞争

When IBM introduced its personal computer in August 1981, Jobs had his team buy one and dissect¹ it.

1981年8月，IBM推出了他们的个人电脑，乔布斯让自己的团队买了一台并进行了详细的分析。

Their consensus² was that it sucked.

大家一致认为这是个很糟糕的产品，

Chris Espinosa called it "a half-assed, hackneyed attempt," and there was some truth to that.

克里斯·埃斯皮诺萨称其“性能低下、毫无创新”，这话不无道理。

It used old-fashioned command-line prompts and didn't support bitmapped graphical displays.

它使用的是过时的命令行提示符，屏幕也只能显示字符，而不是图形界面的位图显示。

Apple became cocky, not realizing that

苹果的员工显得过于自信了，他们没有意识到，

corporate³ technology managers might feel more comfortable buying from an established company like IBM

企业的技术经理也许更愿意从KM这样的老牌企业购买产品，

rather than one named after a piece of fruit.

而不是他们这家以水果命名的公司。

双语有声读物 乔布斯传

Bill Gates happened to be visiting Apple headquarters for a meeting on the day the IBM PC was announced.

IBM发布个人电脑的那天，比尔·盖茨恰巧在苹果公司的总部参加一场会议。

"They didn't seem to care," he said.

“他们看上去根本不在意，”他说，

"It took them a year to realize what had happened."

“他们用了一年时间才意识到发生了什么。”

Reflecting its cheeky confidence,

有一件事情表现出了苹果公司狂妄的自信：

Apple took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal with the headline "Welcome, IBM. Seriously."

他们在《华尔街日报》上刊登了一幅整版广告，标题是：“欢迎你，IBM。真的欢迎。”

It cleverly positioned the upcoming computer battle as a two-way contest

它把即将来临的电脑产业大战定位成了两家公司之间的竞争：

between the spunky and rebellious⁴ Apple and the establishment Goliath IBM,

生气蓬勃而又叛逆的苹果和老牌巨头IBM。

conveniently relegating⁵ to irrelevance⁶ companies such as Commodore, Tandy, and Osborne that were doing just as well as Apple.

而当时和苹果公司表现同样出色的康懋达公司、坦迪公司以及奥斯本，则被归入了 “不相干公司”的行列。

Throughout his career, Jobs liked to see himself as an enlightened rebel pitted against evil empires,

乔布斯在整个职业生涯中，都喜欢把自己看做对抗邪恶帝国的反抗者，

a Jedi warrior⁷ or Buddhist⁸ samurai fighting the forces of darkness.

一名与黑暗力量作斗争的绝地战士或是佛教武士。

IBM was his perfect foil.

IBM是他的完美陪衬。

He cleverly cast the upcoming battle not as a mere⁹ business competition, but as a spiritual struggle.

乔布斯把即将到来的产业战争看做商业竞争和精神较量的结合体。

"If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins,

“如果因为某个原因，我们犯下了巨大的错误，IBM赢了我们，

my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years," he told an interviewer.

那我个人的感觉就是，我们将进入计算机领域长达20年的黑暗时代。”他告诉一个采访者，

"Once IBM gains control of a market sector¹⁰, they almost always stop innovation."

“一旦IBM控制了市场，他们几乎总是会停止创新。”

Even thirty years later, reflecting back on the competition, Jobs cast it as a holy crusade:

即使30年后的现在，在回顾那场竞争时，乔布斯还是把它当做神圣的改革运动：

"IBM was essentially¹¹ Microsoft at its worst.

“IBM本质上就是最差状态下的微软公司。

They were not a force for innovation; they were a force for evil.

他们不是创新的力量，而是邪恶的力量。

They were like ATT or Microsoft or Google is."

IBM就像AT&T、微软或者谷歌一样。”

1 dissect   

v.分割；解剖

参考例句：

• In biology class we had to dissect a frog.上生物课时我们得解剖青蛙。
• Not everyone can dissect and digest the public information they receive.不是每个人都可以解析和消化他们得到的公共信息的。

2 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

3 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

4 rebellious   

adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的

参考例句：

• They will be in danger if they are rebellious.如果他们造反，他们就要发生危险。
• Her reply was mild enough,but her thoughts were rebellious.她的回答虽然很温和，但她的心里十分反感。

5 relegating   

v.使降级( relegate的现在分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类

参考例句：

6 irrelevance   

n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物

参考例句：

• the irrelevance of the curriculum to children's daily life 课程与孩子们日常生活的脱节
• A President who identifies leadership with public opinion polls dooms himself to irrelevance. 一位总统如果把他的领导和民意测验投票结果等同起来，那么他注定将成为一个可有可无的人物。 来自辞典例句

7 warrior   

n.勇士，武士，斗士

参考例句：

• The young man is a bold warrior.这个年轻人是个很英勇的武士。
• A true warrior values glory and honor above life.一个真正的勇士珍视荣誉胜过生命。

8 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

9 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

10 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

11 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。