Re: Apple, IBM and PCs (Re: Apple, Jobs, and the irony of it)

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Gabriel Morales writes ...
> 
> First of, I'd like to say hello to to comp.sys.apple2, including
> Rubywand, SuperTimer, Obsbedia2, Phoenyx, and all the posters of old I
> still see on here on brief browse. I was afraid CSA2 may have been no
> more, but I am very glad to still see it still chugging along. My last
> post was quite some time ago. I've been busy with quite a number of
> other matters lately.
 ....

     Hi, Gabriel. Welcome back!


> In the long run, IBM, even though it did compete with Apple, has never
> been the enemy. It is clear now that Microsoft is the monopolistic
> enemy and IBM is a "friend".

     My impression was that the 'IBM enemy' business was, mostly, posturing by
Apple-- kind of a way of saying "We're a big time business computer maker,
too."

     Apple could sell its early Macs to yuppie types and some small business
buyers; but, in general, the machines were too cute and campy to qualify as
competition in the view of most large business buyers (who, in any case, often
had long-standing connections with IBM via their mainframe installations).

     Had Apple, early on, come up with a business-look box Mac with Slots for
expansion cards, standard hard disk, big keyboard, and separate (larger)
monitor with color, there's no telling what may have happened to the PC.

     It probably would not have mattered, though. Apple leadership consistently
traded away larger market share (and control) for bigger short term profit. The
world of the mid/late-1980's was never going to be flooded with Macs of any
stripe just because the stupid things cost too much!

     Perhaps, for early Mac users, IBM looked like "the enemy"; but, for II
users, there was too little competition for that to be the case. IBM made
relatively expensive business machines. Activision, DataMost, Electronic Arts,
SSI, and Origin weren't rushing to churn out games and other goodies for the
IBM PC.

     Hmmmm, actually, I do recall my first look at an early PC clone. It was by
AT&T. No fancy colors or flying logos ... but, it was the first time I saw
clear, crisp 80-column Times font text on a computer screen. Something then
said "uh oh!". But, that was a pretty expensive machine and we were still
several years away from 256-color VGA and AdLib sound.

     As for Microsoft, my feeling has always been that they just 'take care of
business'. It's not as though Apple couldn't have released a for-PC version of
its OS, it just never did. Microsoft aimed to maximize market share and settled
for relatively moderate profits. If the competition couldn't hack it, too bad.

     Besides ...

1- The existence of a standard platform is naturally going to favor a single,
standard OS.

2- Microsoft didn't write the software copyright laws.



> Perhaps it is ironic, but I don't think Apple has "sold out"
> in any way, just seen things how they truly are.
 ....

     Partly agree. Apple did not sell out it's II users. It simply dumped them.
Since the the Apple II was the company's only chance to hold onto a significant
share of the home market, most II users think Apple made a big mistake.

     Apple did not see things as they really are; however, it did see things as
it always had-- i.e. Apple took the short term, easy profits route. So, it
wasn't that big a shock when the 1989 IIgs upgrade was a fizzle-- very much
like the introduction of the IIe.

 ....

> 
> > Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were cut from the same cloth.
> 
> I don't fully agree.
 ....

     Me neither. One seems to know what he's doing and one doesn't.


> 
> SuperTimer wrote:
> 
> > My bet is still on evolution.  Jobs thought the
> > same thing when he drew the line between
> > the Apple II and the Mac and the result was
> > Apple losing much of its existing user base
> > (we went to the PC).
> 
> > In contrast, the PC has evolved rather than
> > breaking from the past and its user base
> > has grown tremendously. 
 ....
> 
> Evolution is not bad. It may even be difficult to differentiate
> "evolution" from "revolution" sometimes. But, I think too many
> compromises have been made on the PC side. "Competition" of cloners
> who only copy motherboard and chip designs may have actually slowed
> progress.
> 
> It all comes down to who has the cheapest prices. This type of market
> leaves very little room for major innovation, which is why you end up
> with a multitude of copy-cat cloners, like Dell, and would-be
> innovators move on or die off. It takes a lot of money, dedication and
> resources to do true R&D. Meanwhile your competitor has cheaper
> systems.
 ....

     That era could be drawing to a close. The competition for speed among the
chip makers is going to force increased integration if only because the traces
on circuit boards introduce excessive delays. At the least, main memory and
graphics will need to be combined in a single module with the main processor

     The closer hardware gets to being a relatively simple, low cost black box,
the easier it will be to produce a variety of new machines.



Rubywand