New subject: Apple Mac

10 Apr 2000

-----Original Message-----
From: David Vohs &lt;netsurfer_x1(a)hotmail.com&gt;
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt;
Date: Monday, April 10, 2000 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: Apple Mac (was: !Re: Nuke Redmond!)

...
 Well, since everyone on the list has thrown in their
two (or more) cents, I
...
 finally feel it is my turn.

Anyway, Hans has a good point going here, Apple did with the Macintosh what
...
 TI tried to do when the TI-99/4A was out: try to block
out third party
developers. What can we learn from this? Very simple, never try to tell
people they can't develop hardware & software for a machine, because that
will only give people the extra push they need to develop stuff for a
computer. 
...

But this is something I have noticed: We all know how many PC manufacturers
...
 are abound (maybe too many), by there are how many
Macintosh clone
manufacturers? (I can't think of any off the top of my head) 

My understanding is that many people (including Bill Gates!) encouraged
Apple to allow licensing of the Macintosh OS and the building of Mac clones
in the 80s and early 90s. But the management team headed by John Sculley
felt that this would amount to giving away the company, because Apple was
making most of its profits on hardware sales. If cheap Mac clones were
everywhere, who would pay Apples prices for a true Mac?
This belief was not totally unreasonable - look at what happened to IBM's
sales of PCs once clones with 100% compatible third-party BIOSes were
widely available.

Apple failed to understand that their window to exploit the Mac's
innovations was short. Once someone else produced a windowing OS that ran
on cheaper PC hardware (as Microsoft eventually did), Apple's hardware
sales would die, and the Mac OS would have lost it's chance to dominate.
And that's what happened.

There were several Power PC Mac clone manufacturers, after Apple belatedly
changed it's mind in the mid-to-late 90s. Among them StarMax, Umax, and
Motorola (I think).

...

And the Government is jumping in Microsoft's back for being monopolistic?
They might want to look on the other end of the spectrum. (Now I can
understand why IBM & Motorola are pissed off at Apple for not letting clone
...
 manufacturers use G3/G4's in their Maclones.) If
you ask me, (and so begins
...
 my conspiracy theory) I think the Microsoft Antitrust
Trial was a sham,
because why would CEO's of major software houses go against Microsoft when,
...
 in most cases, their software is flying off the
shelves? You do not bite the
...
 hand that feeds you, unless the hand being bitten is
not feeding you! If you
...
 ask me, I think only one man had something to gain from
this, his name is
Steve Jobs. 

Aren't Oracle, Corel, Sun and Netscape major software houses? Larry
Ellison, Michael Cowpland, Scott McNeely, and Marc Andreesen have been
vocal opponents of Microsofts at one time or another.
And Steve Jobs can't afford to come out against Microsoft, because the
viability of the iMac depends to some extent on the availability of
Microsoft Office for that platform.

Apple doesn't effectively control segments of the marketplace the way
Microsoft does. There's nothing monopolistic about restricting access to
processors or components - lots of products are proprietary to one company
and not released for sale to other companies. It's just a bad idea,
something that Apple seems determined never to learn.

Regards,
Mark.

...

____________________________________________________________
David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian.

Computer Collection:

"Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, Okimate 20.
"Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II.
"Delorean": TI-99/4A.
"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable.
"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3.
"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000.
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