Apple Out of Luck and Out of Business

Dateline: The Future.

"Well, now that Apple Computer is gone and the Macintosh is dead, the PC world is definitely going to be a safer place.

"There will no longer be any question of compatibility in the workplace, because everyone will be running one flavor of DOS or Windows, unless of course they need some industrial strength system like Sun or whatever. But they are the few. Windows is for everybody.

"Publishers will eventually see the light and convert their inferior graphic systems to the future operating system, Windows NT. Then anyone running one or another of the flavors of DOS or Windows out there will be compatible with printers and service bureaus. In time, graphic designers and other content creators will see the light and will convert (or should I succumb). They cannot make a living on an outdated computer forever. It was inevitable.

"The writing was on the wall when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs returned to the company peddling another outdated operating system, NeXT. The hoopla over what was to be Rhapsody eventually ran into reality. Apple never delivered a state-of-art modern operating system. The smoke and mirrors died out and attempts to prop up the System 8 wained with consumers. Apple-branded network computers never made it to market. IBM pulled the plug on PowerPC chips. Despite Jobs' best efforts, the MacOS could not be ported to Intel technolgy quick enough. The bottom dropped out..."

Will these words be written at some future date by a technology writer, pronouncing the death of Apple Computer. It's not likely.

Granted, it's certainly been a roller coaster ride for Mac devotees of late. Assessing the status of the Apple Computer and the Macintosh is like predicting the life cycle of computer technology.

To understand why Apple Computer and the Mac will be around for the forseeable future, all one has to do is look around: major downsizing, renewed focus, on schedule products releases, on schedule to release what could be another revoluton in computing (Rhapsody), the best and fastest computers in its history...the list goes on and on. Apple is a long way from throwing in the towel and it very well looks as if Steve Jobs is the right man at the right time. Yes, Jobs makes crazy decisions that no one understands. But isn't that kind of direction what has made the Mac great? Why, he's even considering staying on permanently. Indeed, we'll be in for a wild ride for sure. Name another computer company that creates that kind of excitement.

Personally, I'm buckled in and bracing for more. What I see coming from all of this is perhaps some of the most insanely great products in the history of computerdome...can lightning strike the same place twice?

Contrary to popular believe...scientists now say "yes."

What if Apple Had Licensed the Mac Sooner?

There was a time when computer technology was expensive and only obtainable by a few. Computer enthusiasts did their computing on a mainframe. It was like the Old West: An untamed world filled with excitement, intrigue and exploration of the unknown.

Youngsters like Bill Gates (who today owns a major computer software company) cut their teeth on the mainframe. Gates, like hundreds of others, did programming for others and eventually made money selling software (Gates' has a number of software packages on the market today).

But then Steve Wozinak and Steve Jobs came along and refined and marketed the "personal" computer. It was an odd beast at first. It's not that anyone knew what exactly they would do with the personal computer. The fact was they just wanted one.

Eventually, "Killer Apps" were written for personal computers and the use and need for the machines was realized.

Then came Macintosh.

The Mac was a dream. It was a dream that started at the Palo Alto Research Center. One day Jobs saw a demo and let's just say, "He was impressed."

The rest is history.

I still believe the Mac to be the best implementation of "personal computer" technology ever. We can thank Apple Computer for that. And we can thank Apple Computer for the OS the majority of the world runs: Windows (after all, the Mac was the first mass-marketed computer to use "windows).

I read an interesting analysis recently about the marketing of the Macintosh platform in Geoffery Moore's book, Inside the Tornado. Moore goes against popular Silicone Valley thought that says, essentially, if Apple would have licensed its Mac technology sooner, it could have had the lion's share of the desktop OS today.

Moore believes all markets must have a "Gorilla." Microsoft, obviously, is the Gorilla of the operating system world. He also states that surrounding the Gorilla are Chimps and Monkeys. Once the "Tornado" of market development ends and the Gorilla is established, several supporting and/or competing Chimps and Monkeys emerge.

Apple Computer and its Macintosh platform is seen as a Chimp by Moore. But what Apple has done with the Mac is essentially establish itself as a Gorilla in the niche computer markets of the world.

Desktop publishing, multimedia authoring, schools and the home are areas that Apple traditionally has been strong, despite Microsoft's dominance in the overall OS market.

Moore says if Apple would have licensed its Mac technology that in itself would have not guaranteed it would have won the OS war. In fact, it probably wouldn't have, he says. Microsoft benefited heavily from its "legacy" status with MS-DOS and basically has never looked back. Does Win95 contain DOS? Of course it does. Backward compatibility with IBM-based business applications (at least perceived backward compatibility) has helped drive Microsoft to the top of the OS heap.

I was one who felt that Apple could have owned the OS desktop market had it licensed its technology earlier. After reading Moore's book, I have paused and re-evaluated my thought processes and have to admit he has a point.

Well, I guess we will never know what "might have happened," but as Apple fights for its life today it is good to know that there is a possibility that the quirky computer company has made some good decisions in the past that as enabled "the rest of us" to enjoy the Cadillac of computer operating systems.

Thanks Apple.

The Brillance of It All

A few months ago I got back an old Mac Plus that my brother had been using as the family computer for several years. He upgraded to a Power Mac, so no longer had any use for it.

I brought it home neatly packed away in its original tote bag (remember those?) and put it away in the attic.

Recently, as I moved some boxes to the attic for my wife, I ran across the computer and decided to take it out of its bag and set it up. I carefully hooked up the small hard drive, mouse and keyboard, then switched on the buttons to give it life.

I soon heard the swirling of the hard drive as it booted the system software, which to my surprise, was version 6.0.8. Having seen old set of System 7.1 disks stored away in the office earlier in the week, I decided to see if the old Plus could run System 7.

Oops! The system software disks were high density and the Plus drive was 800K! I got around this by installing the software onto the external hard drive of the machine using my Power Mac; and then reconnected it to the Plus.

As I powered up again the familiar "Welcome to Macintosh" appeared, along with Balloon Help. The "old man" was running System 7.1!

With only 2.5 megs of ram, I wondered if I could move the machine to Word 5.1. Previously, Word 3.0 is all it had ever seen. I loaded it and everything ran smoothly.

I eventually dusted off old versions of software and installed them to run on the Plus. Everything worked fine--slow at times--but fine.

All in all, I realized the Plus is still a very usable computer. It supports graphics, a modem and other modern computer peripherals. I've read on the Web, where there are sites dedicated to classic Macs, that literally thousands of the computers are still in use today. As I worked with the Plus I wondered how many IBM XTs and ATs are still usable and produce the quality of output still attainable on an old Mac.

I long ago relegated myself to the fact that the Mac wasn't for every computer user. This is despite the fact that when the Mac was launched it was touted as "The Computer for the Rest of Us."

This is what the Mac has become. For those who don't care for the tin can-like feel of DOS/Windows machines, the Mac provides an elegant and intelligent interface. After all, do you buy a Porsche because everyone has one and you want to be like everyone else? Don't think so.

I joined the Mac bandwagon at a time when the Mac was clearly a different kind of computer. It was a time when you simply could not do on an IBM-PC what you could do on a Mac. I still recall the contrast between starting up a Mac and the cryptic amber screen featuring MS-DOS. Different worlds indeed.

Well, those days for the Mac are long gone, but as one who still uses DOS/Windows-based machine at work and a Mac at home, I still get a warm fuzzy from time to time when I see the familiar MacOS come to life.

Old-time Mac users must admit that we face a new day. There are millions of new computer users out there who believe the world begins and ends at Bill Gates' doorstep. They believe there is Windows95 and little else. The Mac is thought by this group to be an band of renegades that refuse to conform to "the system."

I kind of like being different, how about you?