Re: The apple 2, the PC, and the clones

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote:

>Supertimer replied:
>
>>"Bryan Villados" <news002@macgeek.org> wrote:
>>
>>>So with all that... Why weren't there that many Apple II clones? There are
>>>other valid explanations out there; however the explanation I feel closer to
>>>home with was the fact that there was a need for cheaper IBM compatible PCs
>>>for business, and not cheaper Apple II computers. Cloning was necessary at
>>>the time to drop cost of the overall PC. The Apple II was never a serious
>>>business-class machine, and the Apple /// failed miserably with its hardware
>>>reliability, so IBM ate them up big-time! Therefore, my explanation is
>>>simply that cloning the IBM PC took a huge precedence over cloning the Apple
>>>II in the marketplace.
>>
>>I think you are forgetting that the Apple II was a business class machine
>>before the IBM PC was ever designed.  In fact, the Apple II was used at
>>IBM before and during the design of the IBM PC.  The first spreadsheet
>>was designed and marketted for the Apple II.
>
>Ah, but the business community as a whole never considered Apples
>(of any kind) to be a respectable business machine.  The acknowledged
>counterculture origins of Apple did not inspire the kind of confidence that
>IBM did.  When IBM entered the market, the business PC was born.
>(Remember, in marketing, perception _is_ reality!)
>
>The clearest evidence of this is the phenomenal growth in PC sales
>to businesses in the year following IBM's introduction.  Apple never
>touched this kind of volume to businesses.  In fact, until IBM entered
>the market, business looked upon PC's as hobby machines or toys.
>Adventurous individuals in business bought VisiCalc, not businesses.

That is the common belief but it was not entirely true.

I have seen Apple IIe's used as everything from POS machines to
office computers at the doctor's office.  There were even insurance
companies and small private plane airports that had them as was
featured in the Apple II magazines.

Given that, I do not doubt that corporate America embraced the
PC when IBM released the PC.  It made sense after all as this
segment used IBM typewriters before this time.

But this is really besides the point now.  Apple really missed the
boat when it came to targeting a market.  Corporate America
could only buy so many PCs and they are not often wise in
doing so.  In my company, many of the computers are still
75Mhz Pentiums with 32MB of memory!  What has really driven
innovation and an explosion in the PC market that has driven
Apple down below 10% market share in recent years has
absolutely nothing to do with business.  It is the home market.
Yup, the market that Apple had, could have kept, but ignored.

It started several years ago when AMD became a player in the
PC market.  Lesser CPU manufacturers like Cyrix and IDT and
Rise had come and gone but when AMD introduced the K6-2,
decent sub-$1000 PCs with good gaming capabilities became
available and the home market exploded.  Once this happened,
Intel had to re-evaluate its strategy and competitive pricing
between the two has kept PC prices low.  But the K6-2 was
only the beginning. When the Athlon was released and climbed
to 1Ghz and the Pentium III could not match it, AMD and Intel
started to battle it out for the speed crown and the home user
benefitted.  Powerful computers sparked advanced gaming
which fueled development of powerful graphics cards.

The PC is where it is today because of the HOME users NOT
corporate America.  After all, why do you need an Athlon
XP 2200+ or a Pentium IV 2.5Ghz to access Outlook, Excel,
Word, and Powerpoint when really a 200Mhz Pentium could
do (and slower in some companies).

The home market is the driving force of PC technological
innovation and Apple really missed the boat when it failed to
deliver an affordable yet powerful home computer.