So there is that quote from Steve Jobs in Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography, one that expresses outrage over Google’s alleged theft of iOS technology. Jobs supposedly told former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I don’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.”

Did Jobs really say that to Schmidt? Did it perhaps happen during that famous meeting at an outdoor coffee shop near Apple headquarters? Well, the meeting did occur, since there are plenty of photographs showing the two men apparently engaged in animated conversation. But obviously there are no sound recordings to indicate what they were really talking about.

At the same time, Apple, has reportedly granted a license to both IBM and Nokia to allow them to use U.S. Patent No. 7,469,381, entitled: “List Scrolling and Document Translation, Scaling, and Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display.” As the title implies, this is a key iOS patent governing the way the multitouch interface operates, one of Apple’s crown jewels. More interesting is that Samsung was allegedly offered a license, but didn’t take them up on it.

Samsung has, of course, been the subject of a number of lawsuits from Apple over alleged infringement of patents covering a host of mobile technologies. You’d think Samsung would have been eager to take Apple up on this offer, but they, of course, didn’t.

But doesn’t this strike you as curious? Samsung is perhaps the largest vendor of smartphones based on Google’s Android platform. Yet Apple, despite the very public and very angry statements attributed to Steve Jobs, was perfectly willing to license at least some technology to them anyway.

Now one patent doesn’t mean that Apple is giving away a significant amount of iOS intellectual property to a Google licensee. At the same time, licensing a technology also affirms that Apple owns the rights, and that would surely help shore up their case with regard to other intellectual property issues. But there’s that huge contradiction between what Steve Jobs said and what Apple is actually doing behind the scenes. It appears, as well, that Apple and Samsung have tried to negotiate their way out of the patent dispute.

But don’t forget that Jobs was, among all his amazing abilities, a consummate salesperson. He knew how to devise the right pitch for the proper circumstance, and you can be assured he rehearsed his public statements carefully before they were delivered. This is particularly true for those famous Macworld Expo keynotes, where Jobs rehearsed over and over again to perfect the presentation.

So when he makes a statement that appears to be seething with anger, you wonder whether he was just  shooting from the hip, speaking out of pique, or whether the outburst that Isaacson quoted was carefully calculated to convey the appropriate message of bombast. It almost sounds like the professional wrestler or boxer who promises to vanquish an opponent. It’s very much sound and fury, and there may not be quite as much substance as you expect.

I am sure that Apple is very unhappy when other companies deliver products that seem to mimic their patented technologies. When those companies succeed on the basis of using those technologies, Apple would hope they would attempt to do things differently. That makes sense too. Further, if Apple doesn’t defend their patents, they simply lose the right to defend them. That can hurt them going forward.

This doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t have the right to develop the Android platform, or the right to license an OS with touch capability. But if Apple owl the rights to certain technologies, Google and their licensees need to work around them in some fashion to provide the features they won’t without infringing on someone’s patents.

Of course, the validity of patents may be disputed. Google, Samsung and other companies may believe that some patents are so generic that no single company can claim exclusivity.

One notable example is Amazon’s famous One Click ordering system. It seems so simple, so logical, that you can hardly believe any single company could claim exclusive rights. At the same time, Amazon, in 2000, licensed One Click to Apple, and they’ve reached similar deals with other companies.

But it may also be true that paying the piper is often cheaper than filing a lawsuit that may have an uncertain outcome and take years to complete. In 2000, Apple wasn’t the financial powerhouse it is today, and perhaps they believed it was cheaper to just make a deal, and earn back the investment by making it easier for people to order new Macs and other gear.

The same logic may also hold true for mobile handset makers who have paid Microsoft to license certain technologies related to the Android OS. Maybe Microsoft’s claims are bogus, but it was more expedient to just take the hit and write those checks. Indeed, it may be possible that Microsoft is earning more from those payments than they earn from the Windows Phone platform.

And as long as patent reforms seem unable to address the claims that some patents shouldn’t have ben granted in the first place, you can expect the bombast and the lawsuits and the occasional licensing deals going forward.

When it comes to software to manage your music and video library, Apple’s iTunes has been an amazing success. It was derived from a commercial app, SoundJam, but remains free for Mac and Windows users.

Sure, iTunes isn’t perfect by any means. Some complain of software bloat and performance issues as Apple adds more and more features. Others complain about persistent bugs, or the lack of features that would seem to be expected of state of the art software. In fact, you cannot even select text in iTunes. There are, however, loads of places to click so you can check out and perhaps buy something. Remember, first and foremost, iTunes is the gateway to a huge online storefront.

Certainly, the success of iTunes is legendary, with Apple in possession of tens and tens of millions of customer credit cards numbers in iTunes accounts. But the way the system is organized only engenders confusion and, with the arrival of iCloud and iTunes Match, the system is only getting a whole lot worse.

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I started using Macs in the 1980s not for recreation, but to get work done. I was involved in writing and desktop publishing. The latter had just debuted on the Mac; I was using them at the office, and needed to bring work home from time to time; I traveled with a regular supply of floppies and other material in a briefcase. It wasn’t long before I stayed home and did everything from a room that I converted into an office. Only later did I find reason to perform more relaxing functions on that Mac, particularly when I got a note-book to bring into the bedroom each evening.

These days, an iPhone sits on my night table, and I use it to surf and keep track of my heavy email load, answering messages that can’t wait till my regular workday begins.

At the same time, my wife has embraced an iPad 2 with a passion. She never cared much for my regular Macs, and would only spend brief periods of time surfing, or checking email for me. But always grudgingly; she had better things to do. But when I received an iPad for review, she asked to spend a little time with one, after I gave her a few pointers. Although she continues to ask questions from time to time, she’s figured out most everything for herself without resorting to online references or manuals. That’s the genius in Apple’s iOS design.

Nowadays, you cannot take that thing away from her without asking nicely, and only for a brief time. An iPad is her essential tool for research, the rare email message, and watching an occasional video or listening to music.

A long-time client of mine, who used to market self-help books, these days surfs and checks email on an aging Mac mini. He has a new one in his sights with the hope of an after-Christmas discount, but I have to wonder whether the iPad would suit him, assuming he could become accustomed to typing on a touchscreen, or dealing with an accessory keyboard. But he still has stuff on his Mac that just won’t transfer conveniently, so maybe not.

Another client has worked as a consultant for public schools for many years. Though long past retirement age, he still writes reports in Microsoft Word. There is no way to transfer that workflow to an iPad, even if Microsoft, as is now rumored, opts to build an iOS version of Office in 2012.

Now the argument against using a tablet as a PC is that it’s mainly a consumption device. I suppose if you consider an Amazon Kindle Fire, you’d be right. It’s a loss leader designed to sell e-books, stream videos and books, and maybe play some games. It is reportedly less suited towards magazine reading, and not at all suited towards engaging in any productive work.

At the same time, the iPad is actually being deployed as a substitute for the traditional note-book for many employees. For a number of PC-related chores, the iPad is a worthy substitute. You can write short messages on it, do research, process orders, manage inventory, and even link to an online data center to record critical information. School systems are considering iPads as replacements for traditional textbooks. Certainly any student who struggles from home to school and back again overwhelmed with a heavy backpack stuffed with textbooks would appreciate having all those books in electronic form. Indeed, they could get instant updates, do homework that doesn’t require heavy amounts of writing, and submit the material to teachers. At least there wouldn’t be as many excuses about leaving the note-book with the completed homework assignments at home, because if a child leaves the iPad at home, they can be outfitted with a replacement unit that has also synced the same material from the cloud. So that completed homework assignment better be there!

So in some respects, an iPad may actually be superior to a Mac or a PC.

At the same time, if most people can use an iPad for many chores formerly the province of a traditional PC, it  hardly makes sense for industry analysts or those taking and publishing retail sales surveys not to consider an iPad in the same category. Certainly Microsoft should agree, since they promise to make Windows 8 work on both a PC and a tablet. To them, they are one and the same.

Indeed, HP’s current CEO, Meg Whitman, has already admitted that Apple stands to be crowned the number one PC maker on the planet in 2012, ahead of HP, in large part because she expects the iPad to be included in the overall sales figures.

Why should it be otherwise? Where is it written that a PC must have a physical keyboard? Besides, you can add one to your iPad if you choose, which makes that difference vanish? A mouse? Well, don’t forget that it was once believed, before the Mac and Windows came to be, that a real computer only required a keyboard. A mouse was a plaything, and maybe many will regard the iPad and competing tablets as playthings too. But, in their heart of hearts, they surely know better.

There’s no doubt that you can just make great inventions out of what seems to be thin air, yet a large tech company has to invest a lot of money for ongoing product development. That’s a given, although startups in garages seem to be able to make miracles without a lot of working capital, they still need funding to be able to take those grand ideas and get them into production.

So I wasn’t surprised to read an article over at Seeking Alpha, which reported that Apple had spent some 10 billion dollars to design cutting-edge gear over the last decade. This year, the R&D is supposedly 9% of revenue, which makes sense, since developing new iPhones, iPads, iPods, Macs, the iOS, Mac OS X, and other products obviously isn’t easy. Indeed, you might come to believe that Apple spends a larger percentage of their operating budget on research than other major tech companies, but that’s not true.

In the scheme of things, it actually seems that Apple is remarkably thrifty in finding ways to creating iconic products without busting the budget. Would that other tech companies were as efficient.

Consider Microsoft. According to the same story, they spent $42 billion in the last five years to develop — what? A new version of Windows, upgrades to Office, failed revisions to their mobile OS, the Zune, the Kin? Microsoft is spending loads more cash than Apple, yet they consistently fail to demonstrate that they are delivering real value for such a huge expense.

But Microsoft isn’t alone in squandering R&D funds. Take Cisco, which wasted $25 billion to build new gear over the same period. What did Cisco deliver to their stockholders for this money? A few fancier Wi-Fi routers? Well, I suppose you also have to consider their failed investment in Flip Video, a company that built tiny camcorders, which crashed largely because you can get many of the same features in your smartphone. It was a nice idea while it lasted, but it’s not as if that acquisition represented a substantial R&D expense.

So what else is Cisco delivering for all that money? Aren’t stockholders at the least but curious?

Now I do not pretend to know the ins and outs of setting R&D budgets, or how to make the development process more efficient and more rewarding. Certainly there are well-known details, however, which indicate how Apple does things more efficiently, largely by setting up small development teams and not maintaining a large corporate bureaucracy and multiply complex committee structure with which to approve new products and product features.

Compare Apple’s lean and mean approach with Microsoft and other companies that choose to believe that you can innovate simply by throwing large amounts of money into the well, hoping that if you have enough people tackling a problem, you’ll inevitably find a solution. I’m not about to suggest how large a development team you need, but having multiple levels of management can’t help. You end up with egos and territorial issues that complicate rather than simplify R&D. You also end up with serious compromises from managers who don’t want to rock the boat and take any risks.

Certainly, Microsoft’s organizational structure seems to mirror the way their products work, in an overly complicated fashion, with far too many steps required to perform simple functions.

But it’s not just the tech industry where inflated R&D budgets and massed committee structures make for a lack of efficiency and discourage innovation. One of the big reasons cited for the failure of General Motors ahead of that corporation’s bankruptcy was the overwhelming corporate bureaucracy and putting too many cooks into the kitchen, resulting in far too many compromises in product development. I don’t say that the “new” GM is necessarily so much better, but they seem to be delivering more interesting vehicles at a more rapid rate with a far leaner company than before. Certainly customers have noticed!

Now you don’t expect an auto company to act like a startup for every single product, and that’s not necessarily practical for any large organization. But Apple’s lean management structure ought to serve as a lesson for other companies. Certainly, Microsoft tries hard to mimic Apple when it comes to product features. Have they paid the least bit of attention to how those products came to be? Sure, Apple keeps the fine details secret, but there’s plenty of information around that describes how their R&D system works. Is Microsoft so blind that they haven’t noticed? Or maybe too many managers are striving to protect their turfs — and their jobs.

Now it’s not as if I want to see people lose their jobs. As a company becomes larger and more and more successful, I suppose there’s the temptation to pad the staff to make sure all bases are covered. To keep that staff under control, there are more and more levels of management, all in the name of efficiency, but usually accomplishing precisely the reverse.

Sure, there may not be another Steve Jobs in the tech industry. But his ideas and approaches were well documented, and that’s what Microsoft, Cisco, and other companies should be examining and struggling to emulate in some fashion.