SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62612)8/17/1998 10:27:00 PM
From: Bill Jackson  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 186894
 
Jim, They deserve better. All we have on Wintel was pioneered by Xerox and then popularised by Apple. Apple got into the hands of a supremely greedy marketing type, ex Pepsi, and he thought he could pound away at brand ads and rape the buyers. Well Gates saw his chance and infiltrated with Windows 1.... and now he has won. Yet Apple could have beaten them back as it took ten years for them to go from 75% to 3%. I knew what to do, but who listens to me.

My suggestion was for an analog on the Wintel empire, but one where Apple controlled both the BIOS and the OS.
IBM lacked both the CPU and OS and died it's own death.
With BIOS licence fees and OS sales fees they could have had an empire to fight off the Wintel hegemony.
As we sit Intel/AMD/Cyrix makes the CPU profits and MSFT the OS profit and the bios is made by a scattering of people.
The Apple BIOS ws too complex for rewriting and so could be linked to the end machine size so an expensive machine would stream, say $300 back to Apple for the BIOS and $100 for the OS and a cheap machine would stream back $25 for the BIOS and $100 for the OS.
This would have allowed for a manageable clone strategy. Instead APple asked a flat fee so they made zero cheap clones and only high end clones and ate a lot of Apples high end lunch.
Now there is no cloning which I feel is retrograde and could doom Apple. They are not dewooded yet as the WIntels grow at 30% and you have to match that to stay in one place at 3 %. Growth of Apple at 50% a year for ten years would take them to 10% box share, quite a job.

Bill