Bits highlights an interesting detail from Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) earnings conference call -- according to its Chief Operating Officer, Timothy Cook, Apple sold 250,000 iPhones to people who want to use them on networks other than AT&T's (NYSE: T).

Cook said that the bulk of those appear to have occurred after Apple's $200 price cut. Bits estimates that at least $100 million was spent on phones that Apple is doing its best to disable. If Apple succeeds, these iPhones will become iBricks. Why does Apple care so much about iPhones not running on AT&T's network? Cook confirmed that Apple does not receive payments from AT&T for iPhones that it sells but that are not activated on the AT&T network.

I think it's ironic that Apple is trying to kill hackers who want their iPhones to run on a network other than AT&T's. After all, Steve Jobs got started in in 1975 by building a blue box that enabled him to steal AT&T network access. (On one occasion, Jobs's partner, Steve Wozniak used the blue box to dial Vatican City, identified himself as Henry Kissinger -- imitating his German accent -- and asked to speak with the sleeping pope.)

But now that Jobs is part of the establishment, he wants to pull the ladder up behind him. What do you think?

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Apple or AT&T.

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It seems that the competition that has been brewing between Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has never really died down from the late 1970s, even as both companies have had ups and downs in the stock market and in the consumer products market as well. The battle between Apple and Microsoft has been (and will be) a perfect case study for future business textbooks at the best universities, as the fight between the two has been nothing short of amazing in the past 25 years or so.

Apple

Apple's start began with Steve Jobs (visionary guru) and buddy Steve Wozniak (tech guru) trying to find a way to get customers buying the personal computer before the market and world even knew what a personal computer was. Steve Jobs was trained in calligraphy and wanted the PC experience to be just as much an art and visceral, visible experience as a technical, computer program-interface experience. With that vision, and with a little help from friends, the two Steves started selling Apple's first PC products out of a garage about 27 years ago in the Southern California area, after Jobs dropped out of college due to lack of funds and general boredom.

What transpired throughout the early 1980s was the rapid growth of Apple Computer Inc. as the PC powerhouse at the same time it was grabbing the attention of MicroSoft (later renamed Microsoft Corp.) founder Bill Gates, who had dropped out of Harvard to pursue his vision of coming up with a PC operating system that he could "license" to all the big hardware manufacturers to use on their machines. But, Gates needed a nice interface to ensure his product was better than Apple's.