Re: Apple's ways

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"william strutts" <wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com> wrote:

>"Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> But how do you go after the Windows market?  By building better
>> PCs.  Faster, sleeker, more powerful PCs.  The Mac clone makers
>> did this and in fact, the overall number of MacOS users increased
>> meaning that it was gaining market share from Windows.  The fact
>> that these powerful Mac clones hurt Apple was simply because
>> Apple refused to change from its usual business practices.  Instead
>> of producing more powerful and feature rich Macs to justify the
>> premium prices it was charging, Apple continued to be, well, Apple.
>> It didn't put the effort into making better Macs.  If Apple made
>> better Macs and the clones made better Macs, you would have
>> a healthy cycle of improvements that would raise the MacOS
>> platform to the level where it could have the same leverage as the
>> Windows platform.
>
>Exactly what I was saying earlier. Apple didn't want to expend
>the effort it would take to compete against the clone makers.
>They have the ability to make superior machines as they have
>shown since the beginning of Apple but like any company without
>any competitors , they aren't innovative or fast to market with
>the latest gizmo. Hence that was the downfall of IBM in its own
>PC market when it lost the crown to Compaq. It failed to recognize
>the significance of the 386 processor and proceeded to make
>incompatible 286 machines with microchannel that no one else
>wanted.

Yup, I agree exactly.  IBM had to go through the fire before it
saw the light.  And today, IBM brand PCs are better for it.  The
PCs from IBM today really are top-notch products whereas the
ones from the days of the PC-through-PS/2 were mediocre.  It
can be argued that Apple had no choice but to extinguish the
fire that could have forged the MacOS market into a force to
be reckoned with.  Maybe it was too late for Apple.  Maybe by
making so many mistakes in the past, not the least of which
was failure to provide a transition path for the established client
base of Apple II users, what should have been its most valued
resource, Apple could no longer face real competition.  Or
maybe it has never had to face real competition, always
isolating itself from the larger market since the days when
Apple saw the IBM PC and ran.  But whatever the case, if it
does not change its ways, it will never be able to break out
of the niche market it is barely holding on to, a market which
may continue to shrink.

In a way, the Apple II series were the last mainstream Apple
computers.  Macintosh has always been a niche player.