MAC |
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by Tony Barcellos |
In what passes for humor on the interstate superhighway, a bumper sticker offers an equation: Windows 95 = Macintosh 89.
This is not only clever, it has the added advantage of being essentially true. Unfortunately for the Mac aficionado who had plastered this rebuke on the back of his car, there is an easy riposte: Macintosh 97=Macintosh 89.
While Microsoft Windows has been gobbling up market share in a creditable emulation of Pac-Man (remember him?), the Apple Macintosh has been spinning its wheels. The most recent reports put Apple's market share at less than 6%. While this is sufficient to prompt one of my colleagues to crow that Apple remains one of the largest computer companies, the real point is that every other computer company in the top ranks is pushing Microsoft Windows on Intel-based platforms (sometimes referred to by the cutesy conflation of "Wintel").
What does it all mean? Haven't the crepe-hangers and mourners been called out on the Mac's behalf on numerous other occasions?
Haven't the reports of Apple's death been greatly exaggerated? Well, yes.
After all, that was Steven Jobs up on the stage at Macworld Expo last month and not Jack Kevorkian. The vital signs aren't good, though.
Consider yet another bumper sticker done up in the colors of the Apple rainbow logo: Windows 95. Been there. Done that.
Another clever one. Apt. Largely true. But Microsoft is currently exploiting the slogan "Where do you want to go today?" Perhaps that last word should be italicized for emphasis. Mac users have been waiting for years for a serious upgrade to the Macintosh operating system. Recently Apple announced that System 8 (or whatever it will eventually be called) has been broken up into a series of semiannual incremental updates. Is this a plus? Do users really want to upgrade their system software twice a year?
In the meantime, Apple's acquisition of Next (complete with Steven Jobs back in harness at Apple) is supposed to result in a brand—new OS called Rhapsody in 1998. Given Apple's serious case of the vapors with its current OS efforts, one's mind boggles at the thought that Next's contribution will be successfully digested and recast into a Mac compatible mode that quickly. Anyone care to bet on that?
Macintosh users are rightfully wary when users of Intel-based systems offer comments on Apple. All too often we true-blue types take the easy path of roasting the big red one _ and believe me, it is easy. Apple's computer "for the rest of us" was for its first several years an expensive system for upscale types. Yuppie computing. The company gouged its customers to a fare-thee-well on memory upgrades and hermetically sealed systems.
When Gateway 2000 tried to license Mac technology for a line of lower-cost mass-market computers, Apple balked and missed a golden opportunity to turn a big chunk of the marketplace from shades of blue to rainbow tones. This was all in the name of huge profit margins that sustained the company until Apple squandered its technological lead and lost the ability to command the prices it had demanded. This was not a populist approach.
Windows users, however, owe Apple a debt of gratitude and we should be aware that the Mac's debut in 1984 was one of those computer industry milestones that will always be remembered. Furthermore, it established standards for graphical user interfaces that remain with us today. It is petty carping to say that Xerox invented much of what the Mac embodied. Give Apple credit where it's due, for being the first company to market aggressively what everyone now acknowledges as the future of computing.
If Apple goes under now, we're all big losers because the Mac's influence goes far beyond its dwindling market share. One might say that its "mind share" remains large and worthy of recognition. If Apple stops being a source of innovation (as it very nearly has), then the entire industry will suffer the loss. It isn't necessary to believe that Microsoft is evil incarnate to be unwilling to leave the industry entirely in the hands of that one huge company. A healthy Apple is good for personal computing.
There is no benefit in dwelling on Apple's current shortcomings. These are corporate failures and have almost nothing to do with the brilliance of the technical concepts that came to market in '84 in Macintosh's friendly little box. While many Macintosh fans feel compelled to treat Windows users in a sneering, supercilious fashion, you can understand that they feel wronged by an industry that has run away from the icon they regard as The One True Personal Computer. That has to be difficult. Let's avoid the temptation to flame back. It does no one any good to permit the contest to devolve into some artificial battle of "good guys versus bad guys" (even if we know who the Mac fans think they are).
San Francisco Chronicle financial columnist Herb Greenberg recently received batches of flame-mail for having published some negative comments about the viability of Apple. To criticize the company is too often seen as equivalent to trashing the beloved Macintosh itself. After sharing some of the messages with his columns readers, Greenberg received a follow-up query: "I'm wondering why you used the term `zealot' to describe the responses" from Mac fanatics. Replied Greenberg, "Because it sounded less offensive than maniac."
Well, maybe we should recall the meaning of the word "mania!" and how Steven Jobs once described the Macintosh: insanely great. Now he's back and it may be too late. Keep your fingers crossed.
Tony Barcellos is past president of the Sacramento PC Users Group. You can reach him on the Sacra Bytes BBS. Reprint from Sacra Blue, the Magazine of the Sacramento PC Users Group.
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