> I doubt this, Bill. Reason: Apple's corporate mission was always
> as a *computer* company, not (just) software co. But I will say
> that if Apple had gone ahead re: OS licensing and cloning, it
> might ultimately have produced even *better* hardware.
I have been wondering about this... at NeXT, Steverino eventually realized that making his software work across many platforms was the way to go. So in 1992, NeXT suddenly decided to "shoot the hardware division in the head" (Steve's words) and stop making hardware and port their software to other platforms (at the time, it was Intel, Motorola 68K and 88K, and HP).
Many people suggest that this is what Apple should do -- let a bunch of clone makers worry about the hardware, and focus on the software instead. If Apple had a MacOS product that ran on Intel hardware and was priced along the same lines of Win/95, they could compete directly with MicroSoft for the PC desktop.
From a technical point of view, however, this would be a huge mistake. One of the reasons I hate using PC's is that the hardware is totally nonstandard and all the add-ons are similar yet different. So getting a machine put together is actually fairly difficult. And writing software for these machines can also get very complicated because you'll never know what kind of hardware is beneath you.
Randy |
