Amid all the hubbub around Steve Jobs's stepping aside for a few months, I finally see a reference — albeit a one-word reference — to his skills as a negotiator:

Jobs is widely viewed as Apple’s chief innovator, dealmaker, leader, deeply involved in minute decisions, inextricably tied to Apple’s brand.

The iTunes Store and the iPhone are widely recognized for technical and design excellence, but I doubt they could have happened without Steve's ruthless negotiations with the music companies and AT&T, respectively.

The above quote is from an Edible Apple article that quotes RBC analyst Mike Bramsky, who lowered his target price for AAPL to $70.

In John Carpenter's horror movie The Thing, the main character is called Mac (short for MacReady) and a supporting character is named Windows.

The movie was made two years before the first Mac was announced, and three years before Windows 1.0 was released.

I noticed this a few years ago, and was reminded of it today when I watched the movie again on Hulu.