I certainly understand your view; I see it more like natural selection: competition invariably improves the species.
To me it's merely an academic exercise and an interesting conundrum that goes back to the question addressed above of what makes a mac a mac -- hardware, os, or the combination? To the unsophisticated user like me it's the os. That's why I like my mac. How it differs inside the box from a pc or a Commodore Pet is outside my area of expertise and not important to me. Others are free to disagree and shake their heads at my ignorance.
While most of us like the company the way it operates now, simply saying cloning will end Apple as we know it is not sufficient. The board of Apple has a fiduciary duty to stockholders to maximize profit. Odd as it seems, in the courtroom (and to some extent the marketplace) the needs of shareholders are more important than the wants of customers. The board must be able to demonstrate why its current business model is best for those shareholders or someone who isn't happy about his or her financial returns is gonna sue.
It's the Wall Street version of a nuisance slip-and-fall lawsuit and it happens every day.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
This.
Apple has already gone down the "clone" path before and it damn near killed them. Apple doesn't have the market share to start dividing it up on the hardware side. It'd be completely different if apple had 50% of the market. They have less than 10%. If apple were to stop the hardware + software combo package, I believe they'd lose more than they'd gain. That is one of the biggest features that makes this work.
Apple has already gone down the "clone" path before and it damn near killed them. Apple doesn't have the market share to start dividing it up on the hardware side. It'd be completely different if apple had 50% of the market. They have less than 10%. If apple were to stop the hardware + software combo package, I believe they'd lose more than they'd gain. That is one of the biggest features that makes this work.
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
"By 1995, Apple Macintosh computers accounted for about 7% of the worldwide desktop computer market. Apple executives decided to launch an official clone program in order to expand Macintosh market penetration. Apple's clone program entailed the licensing of the Macintosh ROMs and system software to other manufacturers, each of which agreed to pay a flat fee for a license, and a royalty for each clone computer they sold. This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. From early 1995 through mid-1997, it was possible to buy PowerPC-based clone computers running Mac OS, most notably from Power Computing. Other licensees were Motorola, Radius, APS Technologies, DayStar Digital, UMAX, MaxxBoxx, and Tatung. In terms of exterior styling, Mac clones often more closely resembled generic PCs than their Macintosh counterparts.[8][citation needed]
[edit] Jobs ends the official program
Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he backed out of recently renegotiated licensing deals with OS licensees that Apple executives complained were still financially unfavorable [9]. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone manufacturers without the ability to ship a current Mac OS version and effectively ended the cloning program.[10] Apple bought Power Computing's Mac clone business for $100 million, ending the Clone era.[11]
Jobs publicly stated[citation needed] that the program was ill-conceived and had been a result of "institutional guilt," meaning that for years, there had been a widely held belief at Apple that had the company aggressively pursued a legal cloning program early in the history of the Macintosh, consumers might have turned to low-priced Macintosh clones rather than low-priced IBM/PC-compatible computers. Had it pursued a clone program in the 1980s, in this view, Apple might have ended up in the position currently occupied by Microsoft-an extremely powerful company with high profit margins and a wide base of consumers perpetually dependent on its system software products. Jobs claimed it was now too late for this to happen, that the Mac clone program was doomed to failure from the start, and since Apple made money primarily by selling computer hardware, it ought not engage in a licensing program that would reduce its hardware sales."
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
I never said "cloning in all history would have killed them.". I certainly believe that cloning before M$ was in full swing power (much by 1995), they would have stood a much better chance of being profitable and probably would have a bigger footprint today.
However, onto when they did clone. It was only profitable during the first few months. After that UMAX, PowerComputing and Motorola were outselling them in a big way. I had a Umax S900, my friend had a PowerTower Pro, and Apple's machines just couldn't keep up with price : performance with those machines.
Either way, the main point here is that what makes apple great is firm control on the hardware. If many different machines started coming into play, support and stability would be a nightmare. Many different drivers would have to be updated for each update and random conflicts would appear. It hasn't been a cakewalk for the OSX86 community as some may believe.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
A good point. I would go even further to say they are no longer a Computer company either (even having gone so far as to remove the 'computer' from the company name.
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
Please note that this article never says that the clones brought in any profit for Apple, let alone, a decent one. Apple's market share before cloning was actually higher -- over 10%. The cloners were supposed to open up new markets for Apple, but none of them advertised outside of Mac publications, and instead they just stole market share from Apple. While this was bad enough, when Apple's market share numbers were publicized, they typically did not include the clones, so the situation for the Mac looked even worse than it was. The clones were very much a factor in Apple's downward spiral during the '90s, both financially and in terms of their mindshare.
The timing for creating competitors for your own products is never right. It's an inherently bizarre strategy that has no place in a business plan.
Please note that this article never says that the clones brought in any profit for Apple, let alone, a decent one. Apple's market share before cloning was actually higher -- over 10%. The cloners were supposed to open up new markets for Apple, but none of them advertised outside of Mac publications, and instead they just stole market share from Apple. While this was bad enough, when Apple's market share numbers were publicized, they typically did not include the clones, so the situation for the Mac looked even worse than it was. The clones were very much a factor in Apple's downward spiral during the '90s, both financially and in terms of their mindshare.
The timing for creating competitors for your own products is never right. It's an inherently bizarre strategy that has no place in a business plan.
Actually it does: "This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. "
Revenue is Revenue. From what I'm reading, Jobs was hesitant to allow cloning because he was afraid the same thing that happened to IBM would be repeated at Apple. A valid reason to disallow it in my mind. It appears Jobs nipped it in the bud before they found out one way or another as to what impact it would have on Apple.
Don't get me wrong. I think he made the right choice. Although it may have given Apple a larger share of the market, the machines being pushed out wouldn't have been an Apple, which defeats the purpose. I'd rather they make it on their own strengths.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
Technically I?d classify any one who designs their own HW as HW company, their own SW as a SW company and anyone who does both as both. MS is a HW company with their MS Table, Zune and Xbox, but we see MS focus is on SW sales for the PC. Dell is a SW company with the crappy apps they install on their PC builds, but it?s obvious that is just a paltry attempt to make their PC HW sales.
That said, no one has the synergy Apple has with HW and SW. i would classify Apple as a HW company first and foremost if I had to choose just one since that is where their major profits come form and because there is no software or service that is sold that is not designed around selling more of their HW and making you happier to use their HW.
They are certainly a HW, SW and services company that is very skilled in two out of three and improving on the third. I think Alan Kay said it best, ?people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware?, but in Apple?s case that quote should be reversed.
He has a point. You can be selling in droves with record revenue but if your expenses are more than the revenue you are taking in then you are still losing money.
Quote:
Don't get me wrong. I think he made the right choice. Although it may have given Apple a larger share of the market, the machines being pushed out wouldn't have been an Apple, which defeats the purpose. I'd rather they make it on their own strengths.
Absolutely the right choice. I never understood the concept of the clones. It seems short-sided, at best. The only way that would work is to stop making the PC HW altogether and open up licensing to everyone to compete directly with MS. They?d increase marketshare by 10x nearly overnight but I am not certain their PC division would be any more profitable.
Pulling everything back in, restructuring and rebuilding from the inside out is always a smart move. It?s work for many a country and government.
He has a point. You can be selling in droves with record revenue but if your expenses are more than the revenue you are taking in then you are still losing money.
The point, was that it was generating revenue in place of no revenue at all. We can't go back in history and look at what would have happened if they did X instead of Y. We can only guess. At the time, Apple was in dire straights. Was it due to cloning? That was simply a guess. What we do know is that their business model was failing before the cloning program was initiated. It did bring in revenue at a time when it was sorely needed. Perhaps not as much as they had hoped. Revenue was not the reason that Jobs gave for killing it however. I happen to agree with his IBM reasoning if that is indeeded the real reason they killed it. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we saw what happened to Big Blue during the Clone Wars (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little pun...).
The point, was that it was generating revenue in place of no revenue at all. We can't go back in history and look at what would have happened if they did X instead of Y. We can only guess. At the time, Apple was in dire straights. Was it due to cloning? That was simply a guess. What we do know is that their business model was failing before the cloning program was initiated. It did bring in revenue at a time when it was sorely needed. Perhaps not as much as they had hoped. Revenue was not the reason that Jobs gave for killing it however. I happen to agree with his IBM reasoning if that is indeeded the real reason they killed it. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we saw what happened to Big Blue during the Clone Wars (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little pun...).
But that's not true. Clone licensing may have been generating revenue, but at the expense of profits. Apple's market share was literally cut in half by the clone experiment. The revenue generated by licensing could not offset the profits Apple lost by giving up that much market share to competitors, competitors which they had created by their own hand. It was a dumb idea from word go.
The reason why it was killed had nothing to do with IBM, which was far from an analogous situation if only because IBM never licensed clones. As I recall, Jobs called the Mac cloners "bloodsuckers" which is precisely what they were, since none of them made any effort to expand the Mac market beyond its existing base, but instead poached Apple's market. This was so obvious at the time. It was also obvious what a huge mistake it was to license, because Apple had no way of controlling the cloner's marketing. It all devolved into a huge battle over licensing fees, which led to the collapse of the entire program, which was frankly inevitable from the start, since it was such a bad idea. Sadly it also took down the CHRP project, which might have been a really good thing for the PPC had it survived.
But that's not true. Clone licensing may have been generating revenue, but at the expense of profits. Apple's market share was literally cut in half by the clone experiment. The revenue generated by licensing could not offset the profits Apple lost by giving up that much market share to competitors, competitors which they had created by their own hand. It was a dumb idea from word go.
The reason why it was killed had nothing to do with IBM, which was far from an analogous situation if only because IBM never licensed clones. As I recall, Jobs called the Mac cloners "bloodsuckers" which is precisely what they were, since none of them made any effort to expand the Mac market beyond its existing base, but instead poached Apple's market. This was so obvious at the time. It was also obvious what a huge mistake it was to license, because Apple had no way of controlling the cloner's marketing. It all devolved into a huge battle over licensing fees, which led to the collapse of the entire program, which was frankly inevitable from the start, since it was such a bad idea. Sadly it also took down the CHRP project, which might have been a really good thing for the PPC had it survived.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously, though, I'd like to read up on it. Surely some of that history still exists on the web somewhere...
I can attest to the clones only advertising to the current users. Each one of my cataloges at the time (Mac Warehouse, MacMall, MacZone, etc) all put the clones on the first few pages. The only place I'd see the clones was where there was a mac magazine. The whole purpose of the project was to expand the market share, but they just attacked apple's market share. It was obvious they were attacking it, their computers would be two to three hundred dollars cheaper than apple's for very similar performance. It was a very interesting time for sure.
Some of us remember this period all too well. You'd open up your MacWorld or MacUser magazine and see it filled with ads from PowerComputing, UMAX and Motorola -- but you'd never see them anywhere else. The cloners were simply not making any effort to sell these Macs to anyone but existing Mac owners. So what was the use, as far as Apple was concerned? I think most Mac users quickly got over their initial excitement about having the choice when we could see what it was doing to Apple.
Comments
I certainly understand your view; I see it more like natural selection: competition invariably improves the species.
To me it's merely an academic exercise and an interesting conundrum that goes back to the question addressed above of what makes a mac a mac -- hardware, os, or the combination? To the unsophisticated user like me it's the os. That's why I like my mac. How it differs inside the box from a pc or a Commodore Pet is outside my area of expertise and not important to me. Others are free to disagree and shake their heads at my ignorance.
While most of us like the company the way it operates now, simply saying cloning will end Apple as we know it is not sufficient. The board of Apple has a fiduciary duty to stockholders to maximize profit. Odd as it seems, in the courtroom (and to some extent the marketplace) the needs of shareholders are more important than the wants of customers. The board must be able to demonstrate why its current business model is best for those shareholders or someone who isn't happy about his or her financial returns is gonna sue.
It's the Wall Street version of a nuisance slip-and-fall lawsuit and it happens every day.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
This.
Apple has already gone down the "clone" path before and it damn near killed them. Apple doesn't have the market share to start dividing it up on the hardware side. It'd be completely different if apple had 50% of the market. They have less than 10%. If apple were to stop the hardware + software combo package, I believe they'd lose more than they'd gain. That is one of the biggest features that makes this work.
This.
Apple has already gone down the "clone" path before and it damn near killed them. Apple doesn't have the market share to start dividing it up on the hardware side. It'd be completely different if apple had 50% of the market. They have less than 10%. If apple were to stop the hardware + software combo package, I believe they'd lose more than they'd gain. That is one of the biggest features that makes this work.
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
Source
"By 1995, Apple Macintosh computers accounted for about 7% of the worldwide desktop computer market. Apple executives decided to launch an official clone program in order to expand Macintosh market penetration. Apple's clone program entailed the licensing of the Macintosh ROMs and system software to other manufacturers, each of which agreed to pay a flat fee for a license, and a royalty for each clone computer they sold. This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. From early 1995 through mid-1997, it was possible to buy PowerPC-based clone computers running Mac OS, most notably from Power Computing. Other licensees were Motorola, Radius, APS Technologies, DayStar Digital, UMAX, MaxxBoxx, and Tatung. In terms of exterior styling, Mac clones often more closely resembled generic PCs than their Macintosh counterparts.[8][citation needed]
[edit] Jobs ends the official program
Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he backed out of recently renegotiated licensing deals with OS licensees that Apple executives complained were still financially unfavorable [9]. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone manufacturers without the ability to ship a current Mac OS version and effectively ended the cloning program.[10] Apple bought Power Computing's Mac clone business for $100 million, ending the Clone era.[11]
Jobs publicly stated[citation needed] that the program was ill-conceived and had been a result of "institutional guilt," meaning that for years, there had been a widely held belief at Apple that had the company aggressively pursued a legal cloning program early in the history of the Macintosh, consumers might have turned to low-priced Macintosh clones rather than low-priced IBM/PC-compatible computers. Had it pursued a clone program in the 1980s, in this view, Apple might have ended up in the position currently occupied by Microsoft-an extremely powerful company with high profit margins and a wide base of consumers perpetually dependent on its system software products. Jobs claimed it was now too late for this to happen, that the Mac clone program was doomed to failure from the start, and since Apple made money primarily by selling computer hardware, it ought not engage in a licensing program that would reduce its hardware sales."
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
I never said "cloning in all history would have killed them.". I certainly believe that cloning before M$ was in full swing power (much by 1995), they would have stood a much better chance of being profitable and probably would have a bigger footprint today.
However, onto when they did clone. It was only profitable during the first few months. After that UMAX, PowerComputing and Motorola were outselling them in a big way. I had a Umax S900, my friend had a PowerTower Pro, and Apple's machines just couldn't keep up with price : performance with those machines.
Either way, the main point here is that what makes apple great is firm control on the hardware. If many different machines started coming into play, support and stability would be a nightmare. Many different drivers would have to be updated for each update and random conflicts would appear. It hasn't been a cakewalk for the OSX86 community as some may believe.
You misunderstand. Apple current business model is primarily a hardware one. The bulk of their revenue comes from this. Opening the market to clones would essentially chop of their primary revenue market. Yes, they could gain some money from licenses, but not the premiums they get now. It makes no sense for them to do so. Apple is thriving in a recession. They don't need to 'fix' anything at the moment.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
A good point. I would go even further to say they are no longer a Computer company either (even having gone so far as to remove the 'computer' from the company name.
According to the Wiki, it didn't nearly kill them. It brought in a decent profit at the time, and actually helped to keep them afloat. According to Jobs, the timing was just not right. Had they opened it up sooner in the market, they might have ended up where MS was, but it was simply too late in the game for clone licensing to be as profitable as selling the hardware was.
Please note that this article never says that the clones brought in any profit for Apple, let alone, a decent one. Apple's market share before cloning was actually higher -- over 10%. The cloners were supposed to open up new markets for Apple, but none of them advertised outside of Mac publications, and instead they just stole market share from Apple. While this was bad enough, when Apple's market share numbers were publicized, they typically did not include the clones, so the situation for the Mac looked even worse than it was. The clones were very much a factor in Apple's downward spiral during the '90s, both financially and in terms of their mindshare.
The timing for creating competitors for your own products is never right. It's an inherently bizarre strategy that has no place in a business plan.
Please note that this article never says that the clones brought in any profit for Apple, let alone, a decent one. Apple's market share before cloning was actually higher -- over 10%. The cloners were supposed to open up new markets for Apple, but none of them advertised outside of Mac publications, and instead they just stole market share from Apple. While this was bad enough, when Apple's market share numbers were publicized, they typically did not include the clones, so the situation for the Mac looked even worse than it was. The clones were very much a factor in Apple's downward spiral during the '90s, both financially and in terms of their mindshare.
The timing for creating competitors for your own products is never right. It's an inherently bizarre strategy that has no place in a business plan.
Actually it does: "This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. "
Actually it does: "This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. "
Revenues are not profits.
Revenues are not profits.
Revenue is Revenue. From what I'm reading, Jobs was hesitant to allow cloning because he was afraid the same thing that happened to IBM would be repeated at Apple. A valid reason to disallow it in my mind. It appears Jobs nipped it in the bud before they found out one way or another as to what impact it would have on Apple.
Don't get me wrong. I think he made the right choice. Although it may have given Apple a larger share of the market, the machines being pushed out wouldn't have been an Apple, which defeats the purpose. I'd rather they make it on their own strengths.
I argue this somewhat differently. While it's true after a fashion that Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Apple is not really a hardware company. If they wanted to be a hardware manufacturer, they could have followed in the footsteps of Dell, and the other Windows OEMs. Apple is a computer company. What they sell is the combination of hardware and software. Except for the brief, disastrous detour into cloning during the '90s, Apple has always been a computer maker, not a hardware maker, and not a software seller.
The only reason anyone thinks that Apple ought to operate their business in any other way is because of IBM's massive mistakes during the 1980s, and how those mistakes, compounded by some quirks of history, turned Microsoft into a powerhouse. The truth is, Apple can't recreate that sequence of events. They tried once, and it nearly killed the company -- and not just "as we know it," but completely.
Technically I?d classify any one who designs their own HW as HW company, their own SW as a SW company and anyone who does both as both. MS is a HW company with their MS Table, Zune and Xbox, but we see MS focus is on SW sales for the PC. Dell is a SW company with the crappy apps they install on their PC builds, but it?s obvious that is just a paltry attempt to make their PC HW sales.
That said, no one has the synergy Apple has with HW and SW. i would classify Apple as a HW company first and foremost if I had to choose just one since that is where their major profits come form and because there is no software or service that is sold that is not designed around selling more of their HW and making you happier to use their HW.
They are certainly a HW, SW and services company that is very skilled in two out of three and improving on the third. I think Alan Kay said it best, ?people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware?, but in Apple?s case that quote should be reversed.
Revenue is Revenue.
He has a point. You can be selling in droves with record revenue but if your expenses are more than the revenue you are taking in then you are still losing money.
Don't get me wrong. I think he made the right choice. Although it may have given Apple a larger share of the market, the machines being pushed out wouldn't have been an Apple, which defeats the purpose. I'd rather they make it on their own strengths.
Absolutely the right choice. I never understood the concept of the clones. It seems short-sided, at best. The only way that would work is to stop making the PC HW altogether and open up licensing to everyone to compete directly with MS. They?d increase marketshare by 10x nearly overnight but I am not certain their PC division would be any more profitable.
Pulling everything back in, restructuring and rebuilding from the inside out is always a smart move. It?s work for many a country and government.
He has a point. You can be selling in droves with record revenue but if your expenses are more than the revenue you are taking in then you are still losing money.
The point, was that it was generating revenue in place of no revenue at all. We can't go back in history and look at what would have happened if they did X instead of Y. We can only guess. At the time, Apple was in dire straights. Was it due to cloning? That was simply a guess. What we do know is that their business model was failing before the cloning program was initiated. It did bring in revenue at a time when it was sorely needed. Perhaps not as much as they had hoped. Revenue was not the reason that Jobs gave for killing it however. I happen to agree with his IBM reasoning if that is indeeded the real reason they killed it. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we saw what happened to Big Blue during the Clone Wars (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little pun...).
The point, was that it was generating revenue in place of no revenue at all. We can't go back in history and look at what would have happened if they did X instead of Y. We can only guess. At the time, Apple was in dire straights. Was it due to cloning? That was simply a guess. What we do know is that their business model was failing before the cloning program was initiated. It did bring in revenue at a time when it was sorely needed. Perhaps not as much as they had hoped. Revenue was not the reason that Jobs gave for killing it however. I happen to agree with his IBM reasoning if that is indeeded the real reason they killed it. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we saw what happened to Big Blue during the Clone Wars (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little pun...).
But that's not true. Clone licensing may have been generating revenue, but at the expense of profits. Apple's market share was literally cut in half by the clone experiment. The revenue generated by licensing could not offset the profits Apple lost by giving up that much market share to competitors, competitors which they had created by their own hand. It was a dumb idea from word go.
The reason why it was killed had nothing to do with IBM, which was far from an analogous situation if only because IBM never licensed clones. As I recall, Jobs called the Mac cloners "bloodsuckers" which is precisely what they were, since none of them made any effort to expand the Mac market beyond its existing base, but instead poached Apple's market. This was so obvious at the time. It was also obvious what a huge mistake it was to license, because Apple had no way of controlling the cloner's marketing. It all devolved into a huge battle over licensing fees, which led to the collapse of the entire program, which was frankly inevitable from the start, since it was such a bad idea. Sadly it also took down the CHRP project, which might have been a really good thing for the PPC had it survived.
But that's not true. Clone licensing may have been generating revenue, but at the expense of profits. Apple's market share was literally cut in half by the clone experiment. The revenue generated by licensing could not offset the profits Apple lost by giving up that much market share to competitors, competitors which they had created by their own hand. It was a dumb idea from word go.
The reason why it was killed had nothing to do with IBM, which was far from an analogous situation if only because IBM never licensed clones. As I recall, Jobs called the Mac cloners "bloodsuckers" which is precisely what they were, since none of them made any effort to expand the Mac market beyond its existing base, but instead poached Apple's market. This was so obvious at the time. It was also obvious what a huge mistake it was to license, because Apple had no way of controlling the cloner's marketing. It all devolved into a huge battle over licensing fees, which led to the collapse of the entire program, which was frankly inevitable from the start, since it was such a bad idea. Sadly it also took down the CHRP project, which might have been a really good thing for the PPC had it survived.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously, though, I'd like to read up on it. Surely some of that history still exists on the web somewhere...
EDIT: Links to some stories from that time:
http://news.cnet.com/Motorola-haltin..._3-203146.html
http://news.cnet.com/Power-called-mo..._3-202902.html