Why Apple Failed in the 90s 369
An anonymous reader writes "With news of amazing sales figures for both Mac hardware and the iPod, the future for Apple looks bright. But it wasn't always that way. The 90s were a bad time for the company, and Roughlydrafted.com has a look at Apple's failures of the previous decade." From the article: "During the development of Mac OS X, Apple polished the existing classic Mac OS, and salvaged what it could of Copland developments. Apple modernized its existing Mac APIs into Carbon, which would run software in Mac OS 9, and later allow it to run natively in Mac OS X. Despite fixing the obvious flaws in Apple's operating system offering, Mac OS X did not in itself solve Apple's problem. The company now only had an improved platform that nobody had any reason to buy. The real solution to Apple's problem was stumbled onto by a fortunate accident. "
The real solution (Score:2)
Any bets on what the fortunate accident was?
Re:The real solution (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly what I was thinking... After reading the quote from the article, I read the actual article in its long winded and boring entirety to find out what the answer to the question is (my guess is the iPod), turns out anonymous fuckface quoted the very fucking last paragraph of the article, getting us all curious for nothing...
Thanks a bundle, asshat, I just wasted 5 minutes of my life thanks to you!
Re:The real solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The real solution (Score:5, Funny)
One day while sending an e-mail, Steve Jobs accidentally hit the "i" key before typing Mac.
OMG, this demonstrates Jobs is a closet vi fanboy !
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The real solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The real solution (Score:4, Interesting)
I also think it's the iMac, but why was it an "accident?" Was it because it was initially designed to be Apple's version of Larry Ellison's lamebrain "$500 network computer" idea? I'm not sure if that rumor is true.
For you youngsters, that kook Ellison tried to convince everyone that cheap diskless computers (which couldn't boot without a network connection) would outsell desktop PCs with actual hard disks. Who really needs local storage and applications, anyway?
The iMac looked like it could have been a "network computer." Did the 'i' in iMac stand for "internet" Mac?
The 'i' in "iMac" (Score:4, Informative)
Why yes, yes it did. It was even considered "edgy" because the Internet (capital I) was abbreviated with a lowercase letter!
The degree of the industry's plagiarism of Apple's style decisions can be measured by the fact that prior to the iMac introduction, anything vaguely Internet-related was tagged "e-" (for "electronic) -- e-commerce, e-mail, e-this, e-that. Almost immediately after the iMac exploded on the scene, the e- was quietly dropped and new Internet things were tagged "i" or "i-".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The real solution (Score:4, Insightful)
think of all the translucent colored things that came out following the original CRT iMac. it was "cute" as opposed to beige and ugly. i realize the power of that may be lost on people reading
obviously nice is subjective, but Apple hit it with a lot of people where other companies failed. when the original iMac shipped it was considered a disaster in the making, by techie people, because it lacked a floppy drive. i heard nrrdly fathers argue that exact point to their college bound daughters in computer stores. dropping that dinosaur thinking is what allowed Apple to break out from the 90s slump, while the rest of the industry scrambled to catch up. take that as opinion, but a lot of them came out with "iMac killers". they cared enough to design something specifically to compete with those little gumdrops.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You would be wrong about that. The G3 iMac sold extremely well during its lifetime. In the four years after its introduction about six million were sold. At the time selling an AiO computer was pretty novel, configuring it out of the box to easily connect to the internet even moreso.
the accident (Score:2)
Re:The real solution (Score:5, Informative)
That's just a lame cliffhanger so you go back and click his ads some more.
the fortunate accidents were:
- Steve Jobs coming back
- them hiring Johnathan Ive (iPod, iMac designer)
Them conspiring to make Apple a more branded, more complete experience, and hype it up, using their assets (OSX with a shiny interface, loyal designer crowd following them, the MS/Adobe/Macromedia software packs).
Re:Marketing style over substance? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you watch Star Trek, you root for the Borg, don't you? Admit it, you admire their efficiency and lack of self-importance.
Since you made some generalizations about me as a Mac owner, I'll make some about you: You think that public art is a "waste of money" and you usually "don't get it". You can't imagine why someone would spend extra money for a prettier car. There should only be two types of cars on the market: Dodge Caravans (for folks with kids) and Honda Civics. You don't understand fashion and wouldn't ever just buy a shirt that you saw because you liked it - you would only buy it if you had some pre-existing need for a shirt. You hate people in business suits, but you also hate people who dress "differently" from societal norms: punks, goths, artists, etc.
That's fine - diversity is what makes humanity so interesting. Some of us like to enjoy our pointless existence for the short time that we're here, and others of us are border-line autistic.
Re:Marketing style over substance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it isn't that he has no soul; maybe he just thinks it is more important to solve little problems like people starving in the streets and not being able to buy their medications before resources are expended on statues of politicians, "Piss Christ", and other random works of publicly supported art. I guess I can't really speak for him, but that is certainly how I feel. Every time I see public art, Christmas decorations, government-participation in parades, I grinch about it. I just can't see the government holding any legitimate position costing even one dollar in any non-critical activity, no matter if it is supposedly for the benefit of the citizens or not, until it has well and truly addressed all of the critical activities that it has been tasked with with regard to its base responsibilities.
I bought my first Mac (a PPC Mini) because a knowledgeable friend took the time to show me that her Mac worked better (a lot better!) than the two OS's I was running at the time: Windows XP and Red Hat linux. I was losing time screwing with things I didn't really have time to screw with just trying to get mundane business tasks accomplished. I'm buying my second Mac (an Intel MacBook) this week to replace my Windows laptop, which finally went nipples north. One reason I'm buying it is because the Mini lived up to the manufacturer's claims both in reliability and in functionality. I am looking forward to the MacBook and I expect to have a similar experience, despite being a pretty cynical person when you get right down to it.
Certainly it has nothing to do with "art." Do I appreciate how pretty the Mac interface is? Sure. But that wasn't a factor in going Mac. I was won over by the smooth integration of multiple languages in applications like OmniOutliner and 100% support for that by the OS; by the complete lack of need to mess with low level Unix issues; by the speed and fluidity and consistency of the interface; by the continual experience of having things "just work" (it may sound hackneyed and fanboyish, but that is the nature of the experience — OSX is as far from running windows as flying a plane on autopilot compares to hand-flying it.) It beats Windows in resistance to malware by orders of magnitude, and it beats Linux by never requiring me to screw with compiling some package or watching Gnome screw up repeatedly, losing my network connections.
There are lots of good reasons to go Mac, I could go on all day about things that I feel have worked out better for me with the Mac, no doubt boring some and annoying the rest. The bottom line hasn't anything to do with art, no matter how long I were to go on. It's simply (or maybe not so simply) a better product, and it won me over based on that. The applications I need are there, and that pretty much closes the case.
And as for your lauding tourism in Philadelphia... If you want to draw tourists, that's a task that it is primarily aimed at benefiting businesses. Therefore, those businesses that will benefit (and not all will) should be paying for it. Not the poor homeowners on the outskirts.
This is very similar to small town sports. The schools (hence, including the kid's parents and the old people in town) spend huge sums of money on everything from custom busses to playing fields. The kids play the same games they could have played in a field of grass, in jeans or shorts. The games begin, the visitors from the next town show up, and the local businesses see an upswing in sales. Those specific businesses ought to be paying for that, not the poor schlep of a homeowner.
These are areas where the government has been co-opted by interests that are not legitimate areas for it to focus, IMHO. Private support is the way to go for both art and sports above the level of casual social interaction or for exercise; and to that you can add parks, monuments, and any state-sponsored museums that might creep in here
they've turned things around since then (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they had no clear corporate direction and their price/performance sucked an ass?
(just a guess)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:they've turned things around since then (Score:5, Informative)
There were reasons Apple went rotten to the core. I know because I have owned and operated many of their computers throughout the years. I would say the most important reason for my exit from using Apple was the concept they had regards software. I had bought the machines to program them for business applications unique to the industry I was in. The shop was small. We didn't have multi-million dollar budgets.
When we tried to program we ran up against limitations associated with the programming languages available. They were good programming languages but they lacked the adequate documentation for us to make them really effective and useful. We contacted Apple. They bluntly told us that information was proprietary and we should hire Claris Works to write the software. That was it. We were out in the cold. No more Apples for me.
Microsoft started with the IBM PC. The PC had a fortunate spy incident in which IBM OS basics were stolen before the PC came out. This opened up and allowed thousands of programmers entry into the business. It was this farm of people that Microsoft drew from. Apple had no such farm because it herbacided the crop every time they could. They viewed programmers as weeds.
Apple is succeding now with IPod etc largely because many many people can play. If they wanted to take out Microsoft, it would be easy. All they have to do is take their basic superiority in graphics and etc and lock the doors open to developers. It will be a short time indeed before MS is on the ropes.
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't that be unlock the doors closed to developers?
However, Microsoft already has massive programmer support, along with a development suite [wikipedia.org] that a number of developers seem to prefer. (Note: I am not one of them.)
At this point, Apple is fighting an uphill battle to draw in developers.
Re: (Score:2)
What?! Can you explain that?
The 8086 was very similar to the 8085, so it was trivial to translate ASM code that ran on 8085 to 8086 (if not the other way around). MD-DOS was, more or less very similar to CP/M, and porting software was easy.
There is also IBM's misjudgement that the BIOS alone could stop clone makers, even if the PC was made with off-the-shelf parts. This, and the non-exclusive agreement on MS-
is it hard programming for Macs? (Score:3, Informative)
When we tried to program we ran up against limitations associated with the programming languages available. They were good programming languages but they lacked the adequate documentation for us to make them really effective and useful. We contacted Apple. They bluntly told us that information was proprietary and we should hire Claris Works to write the software. That was it. We were out in the cold. No more Apples for me.
...
Apple is succeding now with IPod etc largely because many many people can play.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The only things going for Apple in the 90s were corporate contracts (like Nortel at the time - I programmed on them and supported them), educational contracts, and big-time fans. iApple is definitely a strong improvement over its previous self, and has strong inroads in many arenas. It's good to have choices - build-your-own, Microsoft, big *nix vendors, and boxes that run OSX.
Um no. (Score:2)
Corporate direction? Ok, ill buy that.
Apple didn't fail... (Score:4, Insightful)
The comuting landscame might well have been different in Apple had made better decisions in the past, but that's life and mistakes are made
As I type this on my MacBook Pro though I can say for sure that Apple isn't going anywhere soon (I say that becasue this is the first Mac I've owned that has given me no reason to move back to Windows
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Had the title been "Why Apple Almost Failed in the 90s", then it would be a truer reflection of the events
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac OS Classic and price (Score:5, Interesting)
With OS X and hardware which is merely moderately expensive, they might stand a better chance, but it's hard to see how they'll ever really compete with MS Windows. I guess from Apple's perspective, even if their share rises from 2% to 4%, that is still a 100% increase for them even if it's still insignificant to to a market from a whole.
Profits (Score:5, Interesting)
One CEO once said "US Steel is not in the business of making steel. We're in the business of making profits."
Mac's market share is not the most important number. Mac's profitability is much more important.
GM's got huge market share but is losing money. You don't see people saying "BMW will never really compete with GM."
Just because MS' self-imposed measure of success is dominating every market with 90% share doesn't mean that this is the only metric of success.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect Apples resurgence is mostly due to MS appearing to drift away from the ambition to utterly wipe out any and all possible competition. A few years ago, MS would have found it more or less intolerable that anyone but them were making any profit in 'their' segments. At that point they'd do more or less anything to make it impossible to actually be profitable at all, marketshare or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:5, Informative)
Their share has moved from 2% to 6% already gartner [gartner.com] You'll need a new line now.
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, their share of laptop sales [macobserver.com] is 12%, and growing rapidly.
It will be 18% in 3 months timen (Based on surveys of planned purchases within 3 months, which are alot less likely to change than the 1+ year buyer self assessments of 37%, many of which will actually not buy an apple computer).
They are rapidly moving to becoming a, if not the, serious choice for the home user. (Lots of those PC sales are to big corporations, for desktops - and Apple is going to struggle to sell corporations that they need iMovie, iTunes or iPhoto, no matter how good they are as apps).
Combine visible laptops with visible iPods, and alot of consumers are going to be viewing an apple computer as a normal purchase, rather than something obscure and unusual. In fact, if you haven't seen lots of apple laptops around the place, you probably aren't looking around much in the last year or so.
Anyway, my 2c worth, and its an easy bet because I'm not really saying anything other than extrapolating current market growth.
Michael
Re: (Score:2)
They are rapidly moving to becoming a, if not the, serious choice for the home user. (Lots of those PC sales are to big corporations, for desktops - and Apple is going to struggle to sell corporations that they need
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree with this (I haven't seen figures for Australia but I'm sure its similar to the US - you see those glowing apple logo's everwhere there are laptops now). In the emerging markets, cost is everything. Of course, Linux is cheap, and is a real threat to Microsoft there where people actually look at the true cost. (Thus the very stripped down cheap version of windows for the asian markets).
That software isn't a problem. That software can be removed. What might be considered a problem is a webcam in every computer. Some companies don't like that.
There is also application availability, many corporations need some obscure or custom app that's not available on OS X, and the cost of Parallels and the maintenance hassle of supporting something like that might not be worth it, that sort of arrangement would more than offset the ease of OS X maintenance.
I wouldn't argue with your analysis. There are lots of reasons why corporations may not be that interested in an apple computer, even if it is equal cost wise. Of course, when you consider the camera a negative, ignore the apps and have to add in a WinXP licence to each apple laptop, its not surprising that you see business passing over apple computers.
Likewise Apple hasn't put nearly the effort into enterprise that Microsoft has. Which is not to say that they have done nothing, but really apple is just starting to turn its attention there, and probably not that seriously yet.
What they have done so very well is aim for the home user. All those apps that many companies would delete (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, etc) are the very reason that people buy a Mac. I know people who bought an apple simply to use the video editing alone (home use, not professional).
There is an obvious connection with the iPod here - very few corporate buyers, pretty good sales.
That is not to say that apple couldn't or shouldn't compete in the corporate world. But if they had chosen to do this directly, they would have gone against the M$ juggernaut, and lost badly.
The flip side is that M$ is producing an operating system that is primarily designed to be sold to enterprise. The home user sales flowed on from this because people didn't see a better alternative. And M$ wasn't that interested in producing it. The burden of antivirus software, for example, is alot lower in the enterprise when you have a team of IT people who manage all the machines anyway. They are going to enforce corporate policy, restrict individual users, and so on. In this fashion you can make a windows machine relatively secure. Few home users can do this properly for themeslves. Few ever will.
Look at where Apple is pusing things. Take automated data backup - aka - "Time Machine" in the lepoard release of OS X (10.5). This is something that home users should do, and that M$ have never bothered to do properly. Does this matter in the enterprise? Does anyone see corporations supplying individual users with a USB HDD and telling them to do daily backups?
So to expand on my original statement. The future for Apple is the home user market. There was a time when only a company would fork out the money (>$4000) to buy one of those expensive compter things. Back then the company that made an OS for that purpose was always going to win the day. Lots fought for this title. Microsoft won.
Today, that market still exists, and is huge. Its also commodity hell for the manufacturers. Today a $1000+ system starts to look expensive to the enterprise, but lots of home users will spend that sort of money, or more, on a variety of consumer electronics. This is a whole new market, but nobody really noticed its potential until a couple o
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe if Microsoft spends 5 years developing a new OS that offers no real benefit to users, but has tons of new painful anti-piracy and DRM?
Then again, Apple isn't really competing with Microsoft as much as they're competing with Dell. OSX is mostly another feature to sell the hardware.
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:4, Insightful)
What the article, and most analysis, misses, is the profound change in the market. A firm should have a plan to compete with other firms, and should try to anticipate future market trends, but cannot predict, and in fact should not build, massive unpredictable trends into the business. So, when the Lisa was in development, the competition was mostly the IBM PC, which was very expensive. Compaq came in around 82, and shifted the market. However, the compaq was still a very expensive machine, but cheaper than and IBM PC. The Mac was created to compete with the new reality.
To give some perspective on the time, let's look at a third player: ATT. ATT created a wonderful not unreasonable priced PC. It had the advantage of running Unix, the only really workable OS we had at the time. I used one. It was great. It failed because it did not anticipate the market as well as Apple, and becuase it did not have as polished a GUI as Apple.
So we are talking hardware here. What about the OS. Well, for most the OS did not matter. People bought computers to run an application or two. The Apple had Excel, just like the Apple had Visicalc. This was one of three things that caused great trouble for Apple. First, when MS Hacked together MS Windows, there was a cheap alternative to Apple. Second, when MS ported Office to MS Windows, the cheap alternative to Apple. Third, the price of the PC went into a sharp decline, and though Apple was still competitive with name brand PCs, the were no longer competitive with the off brand boxes. As a result, significant vertical market began to appear for the PC, often ported from Unix, and the PC became a single vendor solution, despite the fact the major MS FUD was don't buy Apple because it was a single vendor solution.
So how did the Computer industry respond to this. Well, Compaq began using commodity parts, but because it had to rely on MS for the OS, and because it was a serious company with serious research, it is now gone. The ATT machine was never able to compete, even when prices were high. The general quality of the whole industry declined, and we found ourselves in a situation where nothing worked. Except for the Apple which was an expensive machine.
This was until MS Windows 95 when most of the MS hacks were fixed. You could hook up a printer without selling your sole. You still have to do color coded keyboard and mouse. But after 10 years, the PC genuinely worked, and the shift to MS dominance was complete. As all articles state, the fact that the Mac had no serious OS through most of the 90's was also a major factor.
But I would like to state that all the major pricing changed occurred on the hardware side. MS never matched the changes in the price of the OS. This is the problem of the monopoly. Apple has competed hard in quality and price. Intel has competed hard in quality and price. This has given us the wonderful machines we have, and the wonderful OS to run them. OTOH, MS just gathers money, and only occasionally competes. The most annoying thing of all this is that for the most part, outside of few applications, MS Windows does not work well. The major improvements they have made in on the developer side, which is admittedly a good thing to do. But simple things, like account encryption, which would make everyone life easy, is still at least months away.
And there is still a major problem with the myth of the cheap PC. In almost every establishment, there has been a profound lack of support, which results in the PC not being used effeciently.
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:4, Insightful)
So could the PC. That one makes no sense. No doubt macs were easier to set up. There were closed systems after all.
"The general quality of the whole industry declined, and we found ourselves in a situation where nothing worked. Except for the Apple which was an expensive machine."
That's complete bullshit. PC compatibility was spotty in the early years but it steadily improved. There was no idustry-wide decline in quality as you say. Exactly the opposite.
"You still have to do color coded keyboard and mouse."
You seem a little fixated on this as though it matters. If this were an actual problem then the PC world would have switched to USB by now. They haven't because it doesn't in spite of the fact that the PC industry developed the solution.
"This is the problem of the monopoly."
Microsoft didn't have a monopoly at this time. It competed with OS/2 for the desktop and many alternatives on the server side. Pricing for Windows at the time was modest compared to the hardware costs.
"MS just gathers money, and only occasionally competes."
So this explanation of Apple's failure is degenerating into a rag on Microsoft? What a surprise.
"In almost every establishment, there has been a profound lack of support, which results in the PC not being used effeciently."
That's also bullshit. There are reasons why PCs are in business and Macs aren't. One is multiple source, Another is the availability of business apps and compatability. Another is support. Vendors don't get into large accounts without being able to provide support. That's where IBM made its money, and vendors learned to compete by offering similar levels of support. There's a reason Dell is dominant and Gateway isn't. Dell learned how to sell to big business.
"And, with XP, with the admin lockout, the deficiency in support is even more evident..."
You're going crazy here.
"And these machines are not cheap. If support personnel was adequate, we would be looking at an additional $100 per years per machine, and that is just at the local level."
Sounds like your company doesn't know how to support its employees. The myth is that somehow that would be different with Apple. None of that matters because it isn't central to Apple's decline.
The fact is that PCs were an open documented standard that fostered a clone business that operated effectively under the umbrella of IBM's (and later Compaq's) high margins. The multiple source nature of the platform encouraged adoption as well as hardware and software development by 3rd parties. PCs ran multiple operating systems, came in all shapes and sizes, and could be used for a variety of applications. Meanwhile, Apple chose to keep their platform closed until their market share slipped away from them, and once they opened it they found themselves getting beaten by their clones because they didn't have the market position that IBM had when they were in a similar situation. Of course, IBM was eventually forced out of the market as well.
Microsoft was a ferocious and merciless competitor, but by the time they established Windows as a monopoly Apple's dominance was long gone. It was the ubiquity of the PC that did Apple in, not Microsoft. Large accounts are what made the PC and Apple was foolishly never a player there. Arguably they could not be since they weren't established in business like IBM and they were the sole champion of their platform, unlike the hundreds selling the PC.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Eh? [looks at shoe... looks at fishtank...]
Oh. Soul. Never mind.
Re: (Score:2)
The current iMac models are actually quite a value, especially the 20" model. It may cost a little bit more than a PC-based system, but you get so much standard that there are very few accessories to buy to get you going (maybe except more RAM installed). Small wonder why Apple sells quite a lot of iMacs to home users.
But what really saved Apple was the huge success of the iPo
Went from bad decisions to good decisions (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's turnaround has come because they got a number of things right for a change. After about 10 years of of PC use with mixed windows and linux operating systems, I've come back to being a Mac owner. There are a number of reasons.
Re:Mac OS Classic and price (Score:4, Informative)
A few months ago I had to help someone on an extremely limited budget to buy a computer. Sadly the budget was too limited for any new Macintosh, and used Macs are horrendously expensive. So I visited about half a dozen computer stores to get the absolute best value for money. (Interestingly, the local supermarket turned out the best value). There are quite a few machines out there that are cheaper than any Macintosh - they are not as nice as a Mac, but they are cheaper, so you get what you pay for. However, if you start looking at the more expensive PCs, like £800 to £1000, and compare to an iMac at the same price, then suddenly the iMacs are extremely good value.
This article does shed some light on why apple is (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
It's easier to write drivers when you limit the hardware support. Unfortunately, the other side of that scale is market potential...
The article is not complete (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The other interesting component of the article I found was the dis
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Performa line (Score:4, Insightful)
Virtually none of the documentation for these systems mentioned that they were less than a real mac, so most of the people that purchased them just ended up thinking that the whole platform was a joke.
This is when I went from a strictly mac guy to a *nix fan, eventually being forced to move to the PC. I must say OSX has got me saving my pennies to get back into the mac world.
Can anyone say iPod? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, there were/are WIN32 calls to ask Windows to not swap, however, there is really no guarantee. (Maybe there is now?) Photoshop has a more efficient swapping mechanism based on image tiles rather than the OS with small pages.
For the general business or home computer user, I agree, the 90's Dell's years. Apple fell short of expectations.
I think Apple's success with the iPod and iTunes really boosted their overall marketing effort. Had it not been for those products, we probably would not be having this discussion.
-G
Re: (Score:2)
I personally loved the Mac's back in the 90's. I built a very successful commercial retouching business where our primary software/hardware was Photoshop on OS9 Mac's. OS9 performed well as you could lock down memory and dedicate it to Photoshop (no OS swapping). This is something that is sorely missing from OS/X and Windows.
You hear that complaint a lot from people using Macs at that time, but I assure you, this was largely a problem of MacOS's memory management stinking royally, so much so that virtual
Re: (Score:2)
Today, the current iMac is a very attractive machine, costing only a little more than most PC's but offering things like widescreen display, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's, and
Re: (Score:2)
The sad aspect of your comment is that you think having the ability to manage something that is clearly the responsibility of the software is somehow an advantage. Memory management is clearly the responsibility of the system, not the user. What matters is how well the application runs, and (ignoring the new Intel macs) it's been a long, long time since the ma
Re: (Score:2)
And I would beg to point out that RAM is very, very cheap now. If you have enough of it, you shouldn't swap. I have 2GB of RAM on my laptop, and that was
Article ends before the conclusion, sheesh (Score:3, Informative)
They mention the analysts were wrong that Apple needed more Apple market not more PC market, and that some execution (Performa) was done badly. That at least is true, and why Mom had to use a PC for a while until she got back to Macs.
Of course I was a Mac person in the 90s even though Apple had screwed me a number of times. Now Macs are better but PCs (with XP) are better too. If they can come out with Leopard this year instead of next year they will do much better at Christmastime I bet.
Re: (Score:2)
I abandoned ship... (Score:5, Interesting)
Copland gave me hope, but then they scrapped it. At that point I was a little disappointed, but was in no big hurry to switch.
By the time Rhapsody was in the works, it was really time that Apple got a new OS. The poor multitaking and bad memory management were a pain to deal with, and I was exited that maybe there was hope. I installed a beta version of it and was quite impressed (even though there weren't many apps available).
But then (in 1998) it, too was scraped (or transformed into OS X), and it was clear it was going to be quite a while before X came out. At that point I jumped ship over to Slackware Linux, which fulfilled pretty much all of my expectations.
I patiently waited until recently, when I picked up a MBP and am again enjoying the Apple experience.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, only NOW are avid Apple users talking openly about the flaws of Mac OS Classic. I clearly remember Mac users excitedly touting the advantages of Mac OS in terms of multitasking and stability, although it was clear as a plain day Mac was falling way behind Windows.
I also remember
Apple didn't fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
OS X vs. Classic Mac OS, Intel Processors, Various iMac Designs, as well Laptop Designs. It is a huge change. Vs. say with PCs Same boring box, Windows 95 vs XP, not much a change. But PCs were the leader. But Apple has changed because it did fail. but to prevent it f
Re:Apple didn't fail. (Score:5, Funny)
And that's what saved it, it dyed all those iMacs all those different colors.
Speaking of different, with regard to your sig...
...That should be different than, except that it shouldn't be, because when things (including people) differ, they differ from one another.
cloning (Score:5, Insightful)
Commodity Hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
It wasn't just Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Definition of PC (Score:3, Insightful)
This is where I stopped reading, and knew that the author was talking out of his ass. There was never a hard and fast (and agreed upon) definition of a PC, with the sole exception of what that first letter means: Personal.
The notion that a PC wasn't a PC unless it ran MS-DOS is ludicrous to say the least. PC was an attempt at a brand name rather than a generic description, but that isn't how it actually worked. The term PC instantly came to describe a class of computer that could be purchased by individual consumers. I had personal computers from Radio Shack (CoCo 2 and 3) which didn't run MS-DOS long before I had a personal computer from an IBM compatible reseller.
Several years ago, I booted up my old CoCo 3 and found that the BASIC ROM had a Microsoft copyright. So it's easy to argue that RS-DOS (Radio Shack DOS) was really MS-DOS in disguise. The RS-DOS BASIC syntax was remarkably similar to GW-BASIC. But I hardly ever ran from RS-DOS after getting Microware's OS/9. If you want to see just how pathetic MSDOS+IBM were for the time, fire up an IBM clone running MS-DOS and the CoCo 3 running OS/9 Level 2. The latter cleanly blow the doors (and Windows) off the former.
Re: (Score:2)
The Commodore 128 also mentions Microsoft BASIC on its startup screen [commodore.ca]. Does this mean that its software is compatible with the Coco's software? (Hint: No)
Yes, but... (Score:2)
How did this get on Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
That this meaningless trash makes it onto Slashdot and Digg simply amazes me.
I think i figured it out... (Score:2)
The accident: enter stage R (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft needed Apple not to fail because 5% marketshare was all the evidence Bill Gates needed as proof that Windows was not a monopoly. For $150M, Bill got the room he needed to breathe out from under Anti-Trust and seeded further MS product, even if he lost a window sale or two. It was his cost of staying in business, without the US Gov't breaking Microsoft into separate operating units.
Steve Jobs got serious credibility on the Street, with businesses really nervous about being stuck with Mac's going out of business. Bill G. stopped all that bleed, angst and hesitation in the sales pipeline for Apple Computer Inc.
AUX worked... (Score:4, Informative)
IMO, the article (incomplete as it is) is right on about the weaknesses in Apple's strategy to gain market share. IMO, if they had contiued to expand in the UNIX area and done a better job of marketing AUX, they wouldn't have had to re-develop the idea for OSX. The Microsoft platform, with it's huge base of applications, is a great example of Kevin Kelly's proposition that "Value flows from Abundance" (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy", 1998). In short, Kelly claims that in the networked world, the more people you have using your product, the more valuable it becomes. His first examples are the telephone and fax machine: Both devices were in short demand until enough people had them so that owning one was a convenience rather than a curiosity. IMO, if Apple had done with AUX what they've done with OSX, the sheer utility of owning an Apple computer would have been enough to avoid some of the problms they had in the '90's.
Large business relationships (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple does not have capacity to maintain large clients. They are big on promises, small on delivery. They key word here, is company to company relationships. Now you can order a swath of Dell PC's and most likely you'll get preferrential treatment from them. No so with apple. They make a point of that as well. Most recently they had gall to come to university here and sell computers, telling how wonderful their OS is. Well it is. What university students stand to gain from learning Carbon and Cocoa. Pretty much nothing. Most UI design jobs are nowadays with
So, it is small they like, iPod is selling at least for a while. But that would take you only so far. When you fall on hard times, you fall onto your relationship net that you had built up over number of years.
So during their presentation at the university, they have ignored questions about the relationship and his experience at previous university, only ignored the questions and continued their sales pitch. Needless to say, there are no orders of powerbooks, iMacs or MacPros.
The feeling you get is that they eager to extract money from you and run. Questions like, "will there be deeper discounts if we fully commit to apple platform?" , was no, just standard discount. Write us a check please. I don't know much about business, but unless they alter the way they handle business clients, in the end apple will end up in the same ditch.
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Informative)
The wikipedia page is more informative than this article...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer [wikipedia.org]
Which after reading it, provides better insight than the article....
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I've been reading Slashdot for years and years. No one really talks about it but this site has an obvious agenda which is anti-Micro$oft. Do I care? No. Is it a big deal? No. I'll continue to read this site like I have for years because they cover great things in the technology industry but don't even tell me that this isn't true. It's so blatant to me.
"Why Apple Failed in the 90s"
"M
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Funny)
Do the admins know? Somebody should tell them!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you think that promoting a deserved underdog operating system and highlighting the glaring flaws of Windows counts as "negativity" then our definitions of that word differ.
Re: (Score:2)
You are blind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say that a very high percentage of people who love computers, as opposed to simply making a living off them, hate Microsoft.
For many of us, Microsoft's invasion of pretty much everything we held dear made computing a gray, unlovable world whose primary feature was continuous crashes.
Windows 2000 came close to fixing the crashes, and Windows XP was less gray and grim than previous versions. Just as Microsoft started to look almost tolerable, an explosion of malware came, creating waves of horrible problems that required you to become a security expert just to run a PC.
At the same time, open source software, whether free as in liberty or beer, gave us new hope for an alternative that wasn't priced out of the market by the soulless commodity PC. It co-opted the commodity pricing but added an interface we're familiar with and like.
At the same time, it was still a commodity PC, a product that was slapped together by the cheaper-is-better brigade. It's great to save money, not so great to be saddled with hardware that scrapes our knuckles every time we added RAM.
So Apple came on the scene. Want a system that works at base like Linux, but has style and flair and beautiful fonts? Want something more modern than that awful X-Windows, that wasn't even that great when it was founded 30 years ago? Want some cool ways to get reative with photos, music and video?
Well, then, Apple's stuff was made for you.
Apple has created an interesting split among us. Those of us who like using our computers instead of tinkering with them, and who have some disposable income, love Apple. Those who think the principle of open source is better than having things work out of the box, or who don't have the extra bucks, love Linux. Sometimes we'll have fights, sometimes bitter ones, but in the end we're really cut out of the same cloth.
(Have you ever noticed the bitterest fights often come from people who are almost the same? But that's a question for another day.)
I hope that has explained something of the reason for Microsoft hatred, and why Slashdot covers the stories it does, the way it does.
D
Re:I must be blind... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Insightful)
The mid-90s were where I founded a lot of my deepest views about computing, and this is an intersting problem for Microsoft. I would never buy an American car beause I hate the way US automakers made inferior junk in the 70s, and don't trust them. I can say the same thing about Microsoft; however much their OS may have improved, I still remember how horrible it was back then, and fear that if I use it it will once again leave me bitterly disappointed as it has in the past. (Even the machine I use to test my work on Windows makes me think this is still all too true).
I have a comparable problem with Linux; I love my MacOS X products, they serve me exceptionally well, so there is little point in trying something new, especially if it's still at least somewhat inferior. (Having to apt-get display drivers is a bit of a clue that this is still the case.)
In the 90s, where SGI was too expensive, Windows too crashy and Linux too raw, I was ready for something new. That opening seems to have pretty much closed for me today since I'm so happy with where I am, and - amazingly enough! - my chosen side has even been gaining considerable market momentum..
D
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The above is essentially what you said.
X is a windowing protocol
TWM, Enlightenment... are Window Managers
Gnone, KDE are GUIS.
KDE for example used KWin as a window manager on top of X.
Wikipedia entry for more details [wikipedia.org].
Re:I must be blind... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, he wasn't. He was using IRIX's proprietary desktop, which had nothing to do with CDE. The IRIX desktop was lightyears ahead of anything else coming out of the *nix camp at the time. Nice object-oriented file manager, excellent support for audio, video and 3D graphics and even its own widget toolkit. [toastytech.com]
And to say that you weren't using X, you were using CDE, is as silly as saying that you aren't using X, you're using GNOME.
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is much more to a nice interface than eye candy. Aqua is more about usability than it is about eye candy. All of the features of OS X, from the dialog sheets for opening and saving files, to Expose, to fast user switching, to Spaces and Time Machine in the Leopard demo, have a wonderful way of integrating eye candy with usability to create the ultimate user interface.
I was a longtime KDE user on FreeBSD before buying a Mac a few months ago. KDE is a very great desktop environment. However, I feel that its default themes and artwork are created by programmers who want eye candy for the sake of having eye candy instead of seasoned graphics artists and designers who know all of the theories and practices behind graphic communication with user interfaces. Look at the fonts and icon sizes of a typical KDE desktop, for example. Look at that of a OS X desktop, and compare. I'm not saying that KDE is a bad desktop (it's a very great desktop); I'm just saying that some more polish is needed for their themes. Eye candy for the sake of having eye candy hurts my eyes. Eye candy with a regard for graphic communication and UI makes for a very pleasing computing experience.
Re: (Score:2)
I could try to follow your way of thinking now ... but I fear my brain could explode.
Re:I must be blind... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Amazingly, TFA manages to be even more unprofessional than a Slashdot discussion about Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Im in agreement here. But really, Im just having issues with this RoughlyDrafted kid getting linked to two-three times a week. It seems to me like an attempt to maneuver eyeballs for click-throughs...
Cynical? Well sure, but my real point is that the information this person has used in their several articles:
In sum, these articles are more screeds
Re:I must be blind... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've used Macs since 1984 (although I was just drawing pictures then), and before that I played on the Vic20, Apple II's, the ST, the Amiga, an Apple IIGS.
I've managed million dolllar IT budgets for Microsoft enraptured dotcoms as they went under, and I followed NeXT while they whimpered out into irrelevance.
I was a developer through the move to Rhapsody and Mac OS X, and I'm a bit happy to see somebody with vision and a pulse injecting a challenge into the waters of IT.
Apple has also pushed POSIX (the same Linux/UNIX platform) into the mainstream, and helped Linux to challenge the NT monoculture.
So fogive me if I bubble enthusiastically about seeing a product I like be popularized by a fascinating company with interesting personalities and class and charm.
Also, if you are going to blow stink about my "inaccuracies," please lay them out instead of just making unfounded bullshit claims. I think you really are just bitter because you have nothing really interesting to say.
And for what its worth, I've written well over a hundred articles this year, and three have been posted to Slashdot in my lifetime. EVER. THREE EVER. So don't rain on my parade just because you have nothing to contribute to the world but your worthless trolling.
Re: (Score:2)
Or perhaps a journalists job is to report on what's happened, not stuff that hasn't happened.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> reasons why columbus has succeeded. Where were these expects before then?
Actually he failed.
His goal was to reach India (to establish trade os spices/etc through sea).
He end up in Caribbean islands with no spices to trade (he found some gold there
tho it was not much).
King John II of Portugal refused to sponsor him based in the advise from a council of astronomers and seamen (they said Colombo's calculations of longitude were wron
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Cold truth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A revisionist view (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. The first PowerPC-based Macs were released on March 14, 1994, during Michael Spindler's tenure as Apple CEO. The alliance to create the PowerPC was formed before that, during John Sculley's tenure. Jobs had absolutely nothing to do with Apple switching to the PPC architecture. Apple announced their intention to purchase NeXT on December 20, 1996 and finalized the deal on February 4, 1997. During that timeframe is when Jobs and his influence returned.
But hey, don't let little things like easily-verifiable facts get in the way of you spouting your drivel.
~Philly
Re:The real solution was SELL DIRECT. (Score:4, Insightful)
~Philly