Apple Polishing: Firing Line

I've got a warning for Apple: Microsoft(MSFT).

Sorry if I made the Mountain Dew shoot out of your nose. Microsoft is not a threat, duh. But Microsoft is Apple a couple of years from now. Bill Gates and his team were on top of the world, the Tony Montana of technology. But there are problems with being too big. Innovation slows, people make it their mission to knock you off the hill, and it takes more and more to wow the public.

Each "incredible new thing" Apple releases is met with less and less wow.

Firing Line: I think Steve Jobs should take a lesson from Willy Wonka and hop in that elevator and jet on out of there before it's too late. It's always better to end on a high note, and the response to this antenna issue shows that Apple is morphing into a Microsoft-like behemoth.

Mr. Jobs should also take a lesson from General George S. Patton:

"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."

-- Written by Matthew Buckley in Boca Raton, Fla.

At the time of publication, Buckley had no positions in stocks mentioned.

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