Of course we Macintosh-users are some sort of evangelists in trying to convert the 'lost' PC-users to the Mac Operating System (Mac OS). However this seems to be a logical step to most of us, trying to see things from a different perspective can sometimes lead to a more realistic view of the world. Especially of the consumer-oriented computer market. Although it looks like Apple will reach it's goal of selling one million PowerMacs in the first year and the amount of available native PowerPC-software is overwhelming, let's not forget that Apple holds only ten percent of the marketshare. In my view that low marketshare for such a great machine as the Mac is due to a missed opportunity by Apple to license it's hardware and operating system at least five years ago. The introduction of Windows 1.0 late 1985 was an attempt to challenge the Mac OS. At that time Apple was completely justified in laughing it's 'competition' away. But when Windows 3.0 appeared in 1990, an alarmbell should have gone off at Apple HQ. Although still no match by far for the Mac OS, Windows was very well accepted by the DOS-prompted PC-users, who had never heard about icons before. And here's where Apple went wrong: had the Mac OS been licensed at that time, it would have been possible to conquer a large marketshare. Since Windows 3.1 (introduced mid-1992) was a vast improvement in speed, it became an acceptable operating system. Apple's answers to the Windows-threat was System 7, but the gap between the easy-to-use-and-full-of-features Mac and the standard-not-much-to-offer PC was smaller than before Windows.
Now that Apple has finally made the smart move to license the Mac OS, it could be too late, for Windows 95 is about to hit the market. And System 7.5 did not bring about the huge improvements everyone expected to see, since everyone is using most of the 'new' features already as third-party-developed extensions or controlpanels. As it will take yet another year before Copland (System 8) will see daylight, many first-time buyers of computers might prefer to buy the mostly cheaper PC over the better quality (but more expensive) Mac. The thing to do for Apple in my view is to seek further partners in development of products and to also license out the Mac hardware, especially for the low-end users. In that perspective I believe that the introduction of the 630 series was a smart move. A higher volume of sales will not occur in maintaining a status quo. A lot of rumours are going around about Apple being taken over by IBM, and supposedly among other candidates are AT&T and - God forbid - Microsoft. Apple should stay ahead of the rumours by looking for a similar company to buy or to be bought by a similar company. In my view a joint-venture with Silicon Graphics could be a leap forward in the history of Apple. In house development of future generations processors (by MIPS) and both company's extensive experience with graphical systems and user enviroments could lead to a new perception of the machine called computer.
