While Apple's tactics may seem like Industrial Revolution relics, they've helped the company position itself ahead of its competitors and at the forefront of the tech industry. Sometimes, evil works....

Back in the mid-1990s, as Apple struggled to increase its share of the PC market, every analyst with a Bloomberg terminal was quick to diagnose the cause of the computermaker's failure: Apple waited too long to license its operating system to outside hardware makers. In other words, it tried for too long to control the entire computing experience. Microsoft, Apple's rival to the north, dominated by encouraging computer manufacturers to build their offerings around its software. Sure, that strategy could result in an inferior user experience and lots of cut-rate Wintel machines, but it also gave Microsoft a stranglehold on the software market. Even Wired joined the fray; in June 1997, we told Apple, "You shoulda licensed your OS in 1987" and advised, "Admit it. You're out of the hardware game."

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