Re: why did apple go mac?

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <3A2CA3A8.DC55834E@Concentric.net>,
Gabriel Morales  <Togega@Concentric.net> wrote:
>Frank wrote:
>> 
>> The PC industry has gone out of its
>> way to develop backward compatible motherboards to ease the upgrade process.
>> The reason?  The industry realized that it is such a waste of resources to keep
>> rebuying the same equipment over and over again that they had to make them
>> upgradable.
>
>	LOL! Yep- That's the good old PC industry. Always worried about us the
>consumers and how they can better serve us.
>
>	No- The reason the PC industry seems to "have gone out of its way" to
>develop backward compatible motherboards is that in the PC world there
>is no true leader, no true innovator- so whatever PC manufacturers do
>they're very careful not to innovate too much, so that their hardware is
>not made incompatible with the rest, which is exactly were the PC
>hardware platform's perceived "streghth" lies.
>
>	The only "strength" in fact- the number of computers from different
>companies which are compatible with this "standard", even though they
>are all basically the same computer with slightly different variations
>in specifications (but not TOO much- remember compatibility is more
>important that anything!).
>
>	That's it. There's nothing else to it, folks. The reason the PC
>platforms dominate the market is because, as always, most companies are
>followers, not leaders, and have decided to keep to the "safe" path,
>following the trends in the market and not daring to ever make thier
>systems different and better enough as to be "incompatible" with the
>rest. I am pretty sure they're main concern is making money, not making
>a better product. If not, they are very misguided.

In the early days of the PC there were some companies who tried to
be innovators (anyone remembers e.g. the Victor Sirius?): their
computers were 8086 based, alright, but they tried to do the rest
in a smarter way than the IBM PC.  As a result, their computer became
incompatible (the hardware environment was different, the disk format
was different, ....) --- and they didn't sell well at all.  After a
few years these non-compatible PC's vanished.

Compatiblity is important.  And the situation of no single company
being the "leader" does indeed create some anarchy -- but also a
versatility which otherwise wouldn't exist:  if you need a quite
unusual, special, product, chances are you'll find some company
which manufactures it for the PC.  Now, try that with the Mac.....


>	Ultimately, though, it is enivetable that so called "standards", even
>in the PC world, will become "incompatible" with each other. It has
>already happened. So I don't see much advantage to this slowing of
>progress. I prefer the better system instead. I prefer leaders to "followers".
>
>So thanks to vairety! Thanks to leaders!
>
>Thank Apple for the Macintosh and the Apple II!
>
>-- 
>Gabriel Morales <http://GabrielMorales.net/>


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