Re: Piracy killed the apple. / Nathan Argument

[Robert Boucher <boucher1@pdq.net>]

Stephen B. Field wrote:
> 
> Supertimer wrote
> 
> "And anyone who cares about the future of such a marginal computer system as
> the Apple II should feel the same way. Piracy may well have had a hand in
> the death of the Apple II as a mass-market computer, but what's done is
> done, and there's no sense in shutting the barn door after the horse has run
> away"
> 
> I feel piracy had very little to do with the death of the apple.  Piracy
> effects all systems produced, from the apple, ibm, commodore, playstation,
> nintendo, etc.  If there is a way to re-produce it, it will be copied.  Its
> the nature of the game.  Apple killed the Apple.
> 
>  Back in the late 70's early 80's, the apple was the king the hill.  Almost
> all new releases for game software and some business applications came out
> on the apple first.  Ports were then released for various other systems such
> as the commodore and IBM etc.
> 
> Apple, during that time, maintained a very strict attitude of allowing
> manufacturing of their computer systems to only themselves rather than the
> open system policy of the IBM Compatibles(i.e. apples lawsuit of Franklin).
> Apple aggressively protected their rights to exlusive manufactuirng of their
> system.  (This was perfectly within their rights, I do not disagree with the
> decision to follow this policy).  This enabled apple to make huge profit
> margins on the sale of their various apple systems, and more than anything
> else killed the market dominance of the system.
> 
> They had an excellent policy of selling apple II's to schools all over the
> U.S..  Even today there are still hundreds of school districts that still
> have an apple or two in use.  This created great potential demand for the
> sale of their systems.
> 
> What apple failed to do was compete with the price of the IBM clone.  While
> apple was exclusively manufacturing apple computers, IBM clone manufacturers
> were poping up left and right.   Selling comparable systems for much less
> money than an apple system.  While apple sales were still tops in terms of
> the sale of computers by brand name,(somewhere between 10%-15% of the
> market).    For every 1 apple sold, some 6 pc's sold were IBM clones, the
> remainder commodore/amiga etc.
> 
> If you are a software manufacturer producing software you are going to
> release software for the system with the most potential sales not the best
> system.  I remember the transferance that occured in the early 80's as more
> and more titles were released for the IBM rather than the apple.
> 
> There is no question that apple's IIGS was a much superior machine to the
> IBM XT.  However, it was much more expensive and software title availability
> for the IBM greatly outnumbered the IIGS.
> 
> Apple at the time, did very little to compete against the IBM.  There is no
> doubt that the system was superior, but the greed of apple at selling their
> machines with markups as high as 100% sealed their doom.
> 
> I was very hopeful that apple would start to rebound following there
> decision to allow for the manufacture of MAC clone systems.  This alas fell
> by the wayside on the return of Steve Jobs to apple.  I think that this was
> a huge mistake on his behalf.
> 
> It pretty simple, demand for any product will dictate the level of supply.
> If apple would allow others to manufacture clones, market share would
> increase as a percent of the total PC market.  More software developers
> would in turn produce products for the apple community, albiet the MAC
> community not the IIGS or IIe community.

I continue to see everyone blaming Apple for market loss in the business
community. In 1983, I was the first person in a company of 11,000
employees to get a personal computer. I requested an Apple IIe since I
had one at home, and was familar with it. However, all of the company's
"computer people" worked on IBM mainframes, and this was the company
they were familar with. Management decided their expertize was greater
than mine, and so the Company bought IBM Pc's. (There was a saying at
the time, You can't go wrong buying IBM.)

Apple was never considered, and so, at least at my company, price was
not a consideration. When I retired in 1992, I was the only person in
the company that had a company owned Apple IIe, but that is another
story.