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To: Travis who wrote (13414)5/11/1998 6:55:00 PM
From: Adam Nash  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 213177
 

I am seeing a *lot* of false assumptions and claims on this board. The strategy is a lot clearer now than it has been in 3 years, so it is ironic that there is now confusion.

Well, I think this is one time that having worked for Apple might not allow you to see things as a
layperson. :) Really, I am confused not so much at the strategy, but by the constant changing of
strategies. I can't keep things straight anymore. From what I gather from you, Rhapsody is Mac OS
10. Does this mean Mac OS 10 will run on Intel??? That is a major thing, even bigger than just
Rhapsody on Intel. Can you clarify this? Sorry if I am too confused for you, but I would bet that I am
not the only one who has more questions than answers after Jobs speech. FWIW, I think it was
probably best to just stick to the one OS approach. Apple is having enough of a hard time keeping
developers for the Mac OS.


This is valid. Given Apple's software strategy for the last 3 years, anyone would be confused. In fact, given how unrealistic previous strategies were, your confusion should be directly related to how much of Apple's previous "software directions" you bought into. Re: Copland? QD GX? OpenDoc?

The problem with Rhapsody is that software companies have invested millions of $$$ and hours into creating codebases for the Mac apps you know and love. They are not happy about a marketing and software strategy that would make that all "legacy code" overnight. They have no interest in a business model that involves dozens of man-years of effort, just to support a new OS with a low installed base. Amelio's Rhapsody was this model, and this is why to this date I have not gotten the feeling Amelio ever really groked the software business.
(Aside: his posturing in the book about Microsoft is ridiculous, at the rate Apple was going last year, Bill easily had an insurmountable negotiating advantage)

Anyway, back to Mac OS X.

Someone characterized it as Rhapsody + 6000 Mac API calls. This is accurate, but like anything the product is more important than the technology that generates it. Rhapsody developers are not orphaned. Yellow Box will be on Mac OS X.

Just like you could say the iMac is just an All-in-one G3 with USB/100BaseT and no SCSI/PCI/ADB/Serial ports, you could describe Mac OS X as Rhapsody + Mac OS APIs. However, this misses the big product message:

Users: Apple will deliver a version of Mac OS that runs all of your applications with protected memory (no crashing), dynamic resource allocation (no memory settings), and preemtive multitasking. High end users (publishing, digital media, web-content) rejoice!

Developers: Apple will provide you *one* API which will allow you to deploy to Mac OS 8.x and Mac OS X. (The secret of the PPC conversion)
This means you can just incremetally upgrade your code bases to the new OS. Plus, you still support Mac OS 8!

Investors: We are utilizing the NeXT aquisition to migrate the Mac OS to a technical foundation that will last the next 10+ years. We are also synching our business model with that of our developers: a desire to leverage their current codebase to garner upgrades for new features from the early-adopters (people will buy Photoshop 6 to run on Mac OS X, for better performance, no crashing, etc), while still supporting the 22 million potential customers out there who don't have Mac OS X (yet).

I know we were all excited about Yellow Box, and well we should be, because developing one application for Rhapsody and Windows can and does work. However, that brige is for the next gulf, not the current one Apple faces. Apple needs to migrate the OS to a modern architecture, and this makes Carbon the bridge. Just like the "Universal Headers" were the bridge between 68k and PPC.

As for Mac OS X on Intel, there was nothing about it mentioned in the keynote. Technically, if Carbon runs over Yellow Box completely, that could work theoretically. However, that is not a given, and we shouldn't assume or count on it until Apple says they will.

(The truth is, companies already have Win32 codebases, and they are not going to fuse or muck them up to merge with their Mac codebase.).

- Adam



To: Travis who wrote (13414)5/11/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: Dave Gore  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 213177
 
Travis....Apple DOES have a "ONE OS" approach! Analysts love the message today!

LOOK AT WHAT STEVE JOBS HAS DONE IN A SHORT TIME TO BRING BACK FOCUS:
Recently they decided to drop the Newton OS to concentrate on a single OS strategy.

They decided to limit the number of motherboards to a bare minimum from the 6-8 they had.

They eliminated unprofitable divisions and products.

Also remember that OS 10 (announced today) will require a G3 to run.

That is why it is necessary for Apple to still support the 22 million users who cannot use Mac OS 10.

That is why OS 8 will live on.

PLEASE DON'T get confused with what Amelio and other CEO's of the past did to screw things up.....Steve Jobs is here to "right the wrongs" and he has not changed direction at all, but instead has become a VERY GOOD "LISTEN-ARY" and a VISION-ARY", as Macromedia's CEO said today.

All the developers I spoke with today were 100% excited about the news today!

take care,
Dave Gore



To: Travis who wrote (13414)5/11/1998 8:58:00 PM
From: Sam Scrutchins  Respond to of 213177
 
From what I gather from you, Rhapsody is Mac OS 10. Does this mean Mac OS 10 will run on Intel???

Travis,

I think the bigger question is whether Apple should want MacOS to run on Intel chips? Apple is becoming more and more a hardware/system software provider. It is selling off much of its present software applications software line. Porting Mac OS 10 to the Intel environment could adversely affect hardware revenue in the long-run, placing Apple right back in the spot it was in with the clones. Why do this? Why not provide a superior hardware software system to garner a fair percent of the market, especially if one or two major software developers (e.g., Microsoft and Intuit) agreed to participate?

Sam

Sam