I can't help but feel like you omitted two relevant details here -
1. Gateway was also very active and a model for the Apple Online store around it's launch. (also it's retail launch) 2. Apple got most of its team to build the online store through its acquisition of Power Computing, who were the only ones who did build-to-order Mac clone sales. Their store was such a threat to apple that Apple first ended the clone program to try and crush them, and when Power Computing threatened to make PCs instead, Apple just bought them. (There is a wonderful record of this playing out very publicly in the pages of MacWeek ads from PowerComputing who weekly was threatening various reactionary business plans.
Buying computers at pretty much any brick & mortar (B&M) store back in the day was pretty much akin to buying a used car and dealing with a huckster salesperson
My first Mac was a Mac Plus - I bought it at the department store where my dad worked. The salesman said "if you come back next week I'll teach you how to program it" - So I went back a week later and it was now a shoe department.
I can't help but feel like you omitted two relevant details here -
1. Gateway was also very active and a model for the Apple Online store around it's launch. (also it's retail launch) 2. Apple got most of its team to build the online store through its acquisition of Power Computing, who were the only ones who did build-to-order Mac clone sales. Their store was such a threat to apple that Apple first ended the clone program to try and crush them, and when Power Computing threatened to make PCs instead, Apple just bought them. (There is a wonderful record of this playing out very publicly in the pages of MacWeek ads from PowerComputing who weekly was threatening various reactionary business plans.
No doubt Power Computing saw things through a sheer competition lens, but that is not why Jobs cancelled the cloning licenses.
From the beginning, Apple was conceived as an exclusive hardware and software package. That was and still is what sets it apart from others. The closed system means they can fully plan hardware and OS pipelines years in advance. This also greatly limits variables and unknowns from the process, which is the source of Apple’s “it just works” ethos. It’s why there’s another story on this site right now with an Apple exec explaining that memory capacity specs on new MacBook pros are not conducive to direct comparisons with other brand devices.
One big reason Apple foundered during Jobs’ exile was because the new management saw Apple as just like any other computer company, selling so many widgets. As such, their answer to competition was to be more like their competitors, break open the model and sell its parts just like the others, in a short-sighted effort not to plan and design great computers, but to seek out quarterly earnings numbers by competing on every little field the others play on. Hardware, software and clone licensing were all widgets.
Not for Jobs, though. When he returned, he reinstated his original vision of a company that designs hardware and software together and sells them as a unit that’s better and more reliable than the scattered world of infinite component compilations that was and weirdly still is all of the other competition.
Competition from a clone maker wasn’t the problem. Loss of control of design and quality standards was the problem, and Jobs quickly brought an end to that.
In the early 2000s I had a part time gig at Circuit City (another long gone electronics retailer). I was hired by an Apple contractor to be an 'Apple Expert' on weekends at the local Circuit City. It was my first foray into retail. I didn't 'sell' anything, only providing demos and Apple Expertise. As an observer I couldn't believe how long and complex a PC sales transaction took. Someone would be tied up for hours with a salesman picking out mice, keyboards, printers, memory, processor etc and dealing with hundreds of coupons and rebates. In iMac/iBook land they'd pick up a box and walk out! This was when the first iMovie program came out and I'd amaze customers with my ability to quickly make a DVD from some short clips on my digital video camera. Crazy. Wasn't sad when they yanked the plug on the program. Never went back to retail.
They went out of business in 2011 - probably because they lost too much business to Apple's online store (not sure when the Apple Store at Lakeside Mall opened) — but The Computer Shoppe in Metairie, LA was one of the oldest (and later only) Apple only computer stores in the country.
Dell was never PCs Connection or PC Connection. Dell was previously “PCs Limited”. PC Connection is large technology company that does mail / phone / online orders and is heavily involved with B2B as well as consumer. Similar to CDW. It is based in New Hampshire and has been around since 1982. They formerly had a “Mac Connection” branch of the business that was Mac oriented.
I totally forgot about this story, but it's as relevant today as it ever was.
One thing that radically changed in the mid '90s was how buyers who were not enamored with in-store purchases were drawn to the online/phone based purchasing opportunities. Back then we tended to learn about new personal computers and the technology behind them through magazine articles and reviews in publications like PC Magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal, Byte, Computer Shopper, etc. Those magazines provided a lot of interesting and sometimes quite deep technical content that went far beyond simply using the magazines as a medium to host ads. To a large extent that same model of hosting technical content alongside ads persists to this day.
Of course there were plenty of ads in those computer magazines direct you to the seller's ordering system, which was quite often simply a phone number to contact a sales person to place your order, and later on a web site. The more prominent sellers like Gateway/Gateway 2000, Dell, Compaq, IBM, Apple, etc., established their own "personality" in their printed advertising that was later incorporated into their online stores.
Does anyone still shop for computers and computer related parts/accessories by digging through paper magazines or catalogs?
Today everything starts and ends with an online experience, including researching, shopping, price comparisons, purchasing, and arranging for delivery. Everything is so seamless and streamlined. The few remaining brick & mortar stores like the Apple Store and MicroCenter are there mostly for convenience (for those living near a store) and getting post-sales support. I'm sure some people still go into a brick and mortar store to shop and ask questions, but for the most part I've already decided what to purchase, or already purchased the item online, even before I step foot into the store.
Fortunately, going to an Apple Store today is usually a very positive experience, at least it is if you can handle the crowd noise and support employees who always seem to be juggling 2-3 customer support engagements at the same time. Overall, it's so much better than the computer stores of yesteryear. The only non-Apple "computer stores" that are left for me to shop at are BestBuy and MicroCenter.
I can't handle Best Buy.
As much as I love MicroCenter because they have such a huge collection of fun geeky stuff, and a mini Apple Store in a store to boot, their compulsive need to collect as much personal information about me as they can, even after I've said "No thank you" or "I'm not going to give you my passport and a DNA sample" on every previous visit drives me absolutely nuts, to the point that I dread getting in their checkout line. I avoid self-checkout as much as I can, but I'm hoping MicroCenter installs self-checkout, just like Walmart, where I use it exclusively.
In as few words as possible, all I can say is that Apple nails it when it comes to their online store and their physical stores. They work extremely well together and make the entire customer experience so pleasant that my wallet responds by ejecting all of its contents, and then some.
Dell was never PCs Connection or PC Connection. Dell was previously “PCs Limited”. PC Connection is large technology company that does mail / phone / online orders and is heavily involved with B2B as well as consumer. Similar to CDW. It is based in New Hampshire and has been around since 1982. They formerly had a “Mac Connection” branch of the business that was Mac oriented.
You are absolutely correct, it was PC's Limited. PC Connection was the New Hampshire company with the Raccoon mascot if I remember correctly, which I don't always do. Thanks.
Dell was never PCs Connection or PC Connection. Dell was previously “PCs Limited”. PC Connection is large technology company that does mail / phone / online orders and is heavily involved with B2B as well as consumer. Similar to CDW. It is based in New Hampshire and has been around since 1982. They formerly had a “Mac Connection” branch of the business that was Mac oriented.
You are absolutely correct, it was PC's Limited. PC Connection was the New Hampshire company with the Raccoon mascot if I remember correctly, which I don't always do. Thanks.
I grew up in Mass just across the border from where they were in Brookline and later Hollis NH and in the late 90s lived almost 5 years in Merrimack NH, the town north of those other two and where they are now headquartered. So I always tried to shop the “local place” when ordering Mac stuff.
I too remember devouring Byte magazine and the occasional Computer Shopper every month as well as periodically some of the other computer “journals”. The technical content was usually quite good at the hobbyist and general professional level and the ads were awesome. I was in HS in the early 80s and lived framing about the computers I would build or use later in life from the ads.
Dell was never PCs Connection or PC Connection. Dell was previously “PCs Limited”. PC Connection is large technology company that does mail / phone / online orders and is heavily involved with B2B as well as consumer. Similar to CDW. It is based in New Hampshire and has been around since 1982. They formerly had a “Mac Connection” branch of the business that was Mac oriented.
You are absolutely correct, it was PC's Limited. PC Connection was the New Hampshire company with the Raccoon mascot if I remember correctly, which I don't always do. Thanks.
I grew up in Mass just across the border from where they were in Brookline and later Hollis NH and in the late 90s lived almost 5 years in Merrimack NH, the town north of those other two and where they are now headquartered. So I always tried to shop the “local place” when ordering Mac stuff.
I too remember devouring Byte magazine and the occasional Computer Shopper every month as well as periodically some of the other computer “journals”. The technical content was usually quite good at the hobbyist and general professional level and the ads were awesome. I was in HS in the early 80s and lived framing about the computers I would build or use later in life from the ads.
Some good comments above about a lot of topics from back when, including the days of Macs in the various magazines - technical articles and also sales ads - I remember seeing the sales ads in the 90’s, listing the prices of various Macs and the top end at the time IIfx was something like $6k… no monitor, of course… think about what that would be in today’s dollars
I got an interesting AAPL investor story regarding my memories of the original Apple Online Store.
When I first bought AAPL about when Jobs returned, I was monitoring various AAPL online investor boards. Right off hand I can't remember which one this is about. It was maybe either SilconInvestor or Yahoo Finance community AAPL board. But anyway, there was a poster on one of these that went by the name of "FUBAR" and he devised a simple way of predicting Apple quarter;y earnings by using a rather quirky aspect of the original Apple Online Store.
What he discovered, about a year after the Apple Online store opened, was that their numbered invoices were in sequence as though from a single pad of numbered invoice forms. Like what one might expect from a small mom and pop store. So by having several invoices from the beginning of each quarter and at the end of each quarter, he had a good idea of how many sales were made from the online store in the quarter. So he created an Excel spreadsheet to graph out the numbers of sales in each quarter and requested the AAPL investor community to summit any invoice number and the date of the invoice, for any purchases made since the online store opened.
With that data on hand, he was able to graph out the number of sales in each of the past quarters. And back then, Apple revealed their online store sales revenue with each quarterly report and Apple Online Store revenue was a major part of their total quarterly revenue. So now "FUBAR" also knew the online store revenue generated in each of the past quarters and he calculated a fairly accurate average of how much each invoice generated in revenue. Along with any growth from quarter to quarter.
So at the beginning and end of each quarter, several members would make sure to plan on buying something they need (of have a friend buy something) from the online store to get the needed invoice numbers. So by knowing how many sales were made in the quarter and using the average amount of the sales per invoice from past quarters (along with any growth rate), he accurately predicted whether Apple would miss, meet or beat estimates. Or if Apple was going to blow out the quarterly estimates. This went on for couple of years until Apple opened their brick and mortar store in 2001. When that happened, Apple changed the way invoices were numbered and they could no longer be used it to predict the number of sales each quarter anyways, as more and more sales were made in Apple brick and mortar stores.
As a long term investor, it really didn't matter to me about "FUBAR" quarterly earnings predictions, (as accurate as they were), but it was still fun to see how they turn out every quarter. But I could image the day traders among the forum, making quite a bit by trading AAPL based on those predictions.
You left out the oddest interesting moment in the transition to the official Apple stores. Volunteers who went to CompUSA and helped promote the Apple section. I know, as I was one.
Me too, brother!
I got lucky though, and an Apple regional manager spotted me and asked me if I’d like to train the staff at CompUSA and other stores to promote Apple products. Of course I said yes! Still have my shirt from those days.
My recollection was that Mac(PC)Connection actually handled sales and back end logistics for the online store when it launched, before Apple set up its own operations.
I also remember ordering a PowerTower Pro 225 from PCC, and since it took so long for delivery, cancelled it in favor of a PowerMac 8600.
But when Apple's future was in doubt, PCC's "Fight Back for Mac" campaign, including the Humvees at Macworld Expo, served as a nice pep effort…back before Macworld turned into an iDevice accessories faire.
Tim Cook was pretty much with Apple the entire time. He joined Apple in 1998 after meeting with Steve Jobs (at the request of Steve) and Tim was quite phenomenal at fixing Apple's inventory issue(s) and I think that still continues today.
"...the entire time." Ah, youth. Apple started in 1977. Tim joined in '98. Apple was successful when it started, and then it wasn't.
More has been written about that than is known. When Steve returned, Compaq was killing it in the PC space and Tim was the brains behind their logistics operations. Steve poached him from Compaq, and the rest we know.
Read the messages from the beginning. Macexpress was responding to Zimmermann's inquiry, if Tim Cook was with Apple the entire time after Steve Jobs returned to the company. "Was Tim Cook there all the time when Steve Jobs was rebuilding Apple?" Macexpress responded, yes, Tim Cook was mostly there the entire time, joining Apple in 1998, when Jobs returned in 1997.
Macintosh clone company, Power Computing sold their poorly made but inexpensive Mac clones solely online via their very advance (for it's day) web site that allowed the customer to custom build their Macs with just a few mouse clicks. This was in 1993, before Steve Jobs returned to Apple. The Power Computing website was very effective and successful.
When Jobs returned to Apple, he immediately cancelled all Mac clone licenses and bought the Power Computing store website. In very short time, the site was adapted to Apple's Mac line up.
Original credit for the Apple Store website goes to Mac clone company, Power Computing.
Close, not 100% – I heard good reports about Power Computing and in fact they were one of the reasons cloning was shut down by Jobs: they were cheaper than Apple and quicker to market with newer, faster designs. And beating Apple at winning large orders.
You are 100% correct, and R Lubin has all his facts wrong. Clones did not exist in 1993. Started in 1995. Jobs shut down the clones because they were cannibalizing Mac sales and Jobs needed to make Apple profitable. So Jobs shut down the licensing and it had nothing to do with Power Computing's online store or advertising. In fact, Power Computing was going to make Windows PC clones, but shortly thereafter, went out of business instead.
Comments
1. Gateway was also very active and a model for the Apple Online store around it's launch. (also it's retail launch)
2. Apple got most of its team to build the online store through its acquisition of Power Computing, who were the only ones who did build-to-order Mac clone sales. Their store was such a threat to apple that Apple first ended the clone program to try and crush them, and when Power Computing threatened to make PCs instead, Apple just bought them. (There is a wonderful record of this playing out very publicly in the pages of MacWeek ads from PowerComputing who weekly was threatening various reactionary business plans.
Computers in the 80's were WILD.
One thing that radically changed in the mid '90s was how buyers who were not enamored with in-store purchases were drawn to the online/phone based purchasing opportunities. Back then we tended to learn about new personal computers and the technology behind them through magazine articles and reviews in publications like PC Magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal, Byte, Computer Shopper, etc. Those magazines provided a lot of interesting and sometimes quite deep technical content that went far beyond simply using the magazines as a medium to host ads. To a large extent that same model of hosting technical content alongside ads persists to this day.
Of course there were plenty of ads in those computer magazines direct you to the seller's ordering system, which was quite often simply a phone number to contact a sales person to place your order, and later on a web site. The more prominent sellers like Gateway/Gateway 2000, Dell, Compaq, IBM, Apple, etc., established their own "personality" in their printed advertising that was later incorporated into their online stores.
Does anyone still shop for computers and computer related parts/accessories by digging through paper magazines or catalogs?
Today everything starts and ends with an online experience, including researching, shopping, price comparisons, purchasing, and arranging for delivery. Everything is so seamless and streamlined. The few remaining brick & mortar stores like the Apple Store and MicroCenter are there mostly for convenience (for those living near a store) and getting post-sales support. I'm sure some people still go into a brick and mortar store to shop and ask questions, but for the most part I've already decided what to purchase, or already purchased the item online, even before I step foot into the store.
Fortunately, going to an Apple Store today is usually a very positive experience, at least it is if you can handle the crowd noise and support employees who always seem to be juggling 2-3 customer support engagements at the same time. Overall, it's so much better than the computer stores of yesteryear. The only non-Apple "computer stores" that are left for me to shop at are BestBuy and MicroCenter.
I can't handle Best Buy.
As much as I love MicroCenter because they have such a huge collection of fun geeky stuff, and a mini Apple Store in a store to boot, their compulsive need to collect as much personal information about me as they can, even after I've said "No thank you" or "I'm not going to give you my passport and a DNA sample" on every previous visit drives me absolutely nuts, to the point that I dread getting in their checkout line. I avoid self-checkout as much as I can, but I'm hoping MicroCenter installs self-checkout, just like Walmart, where I use it exclusively.
In as few words as possible, all I can say is that Apple nails it when it comes to their online store and their physical stores. They work extremely well together and make the entire customer experience so pleasant that my wallet responds by ejecting all of its contents, and then some.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980509035420/http://www.apple.com/
Sadly, Apple has blocked its old Store pages from displaying...
The Apple Store
:-(
You are 100% correct, and R Lubin has all his facts wrong. Clones did not exist in 1993. Started in 1995. Jobs shut down the clones because they were cannibalizing Mac sales and Jobs needed to make Apple profitable. So Jobs shut down the licensing and it had nothing to do with Power Computing's online store or advertising. In fact, Power Computing was going to make Windows PC clones, but shortly thereafter, went out of business instead.