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December 20, 1997
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July-December
December 20, 1997
I get this from Apple Public Relations, specifically their Macintosh Developers e-mail list. My understanding is that these statistics are based on polling and are very conservative estimates:
"A recent analysis of the worldwide Macintosh installed base and the Macintosh user base for fiscal year 1997 (ending September 30), revealed a number of interesting highlights, including the following:
- 27.6 million Macintosh computers have been shipped worldwide since 1984.
- 79 percent of all Macintosh computers shipped are still in use. (That's 21.8 million active Macintosh computers.)
- There are an average of 3.2 users per active installed Macintosh, which means there are 69.3 million Macintosh users worldwide."
December 12, 1997
Apple's new on-line store reported $12 million in sales for its first month of operation. While this is a relatively small amount of over all sales, that still makes Apple's store the third largest e-commerce business on the web.
December 11, 1997
Here's a summary of a Whetstone benchmarking test which is designed to measure a computer's computational speed. PowerPC machines show almost a 2-to-1 advantage over their Wintel counterparts at the same megahertz. (Note that Apple's new G3 machines actually perform slightly under the PowerPC 604e chip in this test because the G3 has been optimized for running the MacOS, not doing heavy computational work.) How much of a speed up can I expect moving from my Mac IIci to, say, a PowerMac 7500 with a Newer Tech PowerMaxPro 250-MHz G3 card? My IIci rates 1896. The G3-upgraded Mac? 117,045!
November 19, 1997
Latest Apple rumors include mention of two new distinct Macintosh lines based on the G3: One, the Power Express line, will be a high end ($3000+) replacement for the 8600/9600s; the other line, code-named "Artemis," is scheduled to replace the 5000-series at a sub-$2000 price point (including monitor). At this point all we can say for sure is that if it's based on the G3 chip, it will be blazingly fast.
If you've not done so, check out the new Apple Store and see what you think.
November 13, 1997
So no merger between Oracle and Apple, though latest word is that their will be something of a partnership in the area of network computers and that a merger is not yet out of the question.
As far what was announced, the new G3 Power Macs look awfully speedy and, for a change, very price competitive with Wintel machines right out of the gate. For $2000 to $3000 you can get a G3 machine that is a lot faster than the latest Pentium II-based computer at the same price point. Interestingly, these G3-machines are the home or "prosumer" (professional/consumer) models, with the full-speed-ahead-how-fast-can-we-possibly-go models of the professional line debuting in January. Personally, I'm interested to see what this does to the pricing of older used Power Macs like the 8600/200.
Apple also announced a new G3 PowerBook computer which, while pricey as all get out at $5500, is also about twice as fast as the PowerBook 3400. The new G3 machine roughly doubles the performance of the 3400, making it the undisputed laptop speed king. No Wintel laptop is anywhere close. (For point of reference, the fastest Wintel laptops are still slower than the 3400.)
Perhaps most significant in Apple's big media day was the notice that Apple is changing the way it builds computers. Hype about the on-line store aside (which, while interesting, isn't really as big a deal as it's made out to be), the important point here is that Apple is moving toward a build-to-order manufacturing process. What this means is that—finally—Apple won't get caught with hundreds of machines that nobody wants because new technology has made them obsolete. Long-term, this bodes well for a solid return to profitability.
November 8, 1997
Rumors abound on the net regarding Apple's big announcements on Monday. Many observers believe that we will see an Apple-Oracle merger announced along with the blazingly fast G3-machines (roughly twice as fast as Pentium II-based machines) and a new Apple on-line sales "store" where customers can configure and order their own systems. We'll see.
October 26, 1997
Latest tally of computer viruses:
- Windows-based systems: 7,000 and counting.
- Macintosh OS-based systems: 32
We're starting to get some word on the net about Apple's new line of G3-based machines which will replace the 9x00 and 8x00 lines. The tentative name for the line is "Power Macintosh G3 Extreme," and early reports make is sound like the machines will definitely live up to the "extreme" billing in terms of performance.
October 23, 1997
More details today emerging on Microsoft's plain-as-day guilt in the anti-trust violation case brought by the Justice Department. According to documents filed in court, MS apparently gave major computer manufacturers (Compaq, Gateway 2000, etc.) no choice but to accept MS Internet Explorer as their default web browser. It was either that or no Windows 95 (which, again, in the Wintel world would be the kiss of death). In Compaq's case, MS went so far as to actually terminate Compaq's Windows 95 licensing agreement, reinstating it only when Compaq buckled under and agreed to use Internet Explorer.
Where do I want to go today? As far away from Microsoft as possible.
October 21, 1997
I'm not ready to call it the most inept Justice Department in the history of the Executive Branch (an honor currently shared amongst the Nixon and Reagan administrations), but the Janet Reno-led group is certainly making a push for the award. (See Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.)
Now, in belated recognition of what everyone else already knew, the Justice Department is accusing software behemoth Microsoft of anti-trust violations because they require computer makers to include Internet Explorer if they want to ship Windows 95 on their machines (and in the Wintel world not having Windows 95 on your machine is the kiss of death). The Justice Department is seeking to fine MS $1 million a day until this situation is resolved to its satisfaction.
Two observations: First, obviously, Microsoft is guilty as sin and everyone in the world knows it. Their very business success is built on anti-competitive practices and has been since at least the mid-1980s. If the Justice Department were even half-way competent—and clearly they're not—they would've put a stop to this years ago.
Second, $1 million a day—a record civil penalty shouts the JD troops—is a ridiculously low figure to a company with $9 billion in cash. As some have pointed out, MS could pay the fine just by using the interest they generate with the cash on hand.
And let's face it, if I were Microsoft, I wouldn't alter my behavior in the least. I'd pay the $1 million a day fine for a couple years until I'd driven Netscape out the browser business (or out of business entirely) then change my behavior. And why not? That's what Microsoft has always done before, and why so many of us hate Microsoft to begin with.
October 15, 1997
You will, no doubt, hear news reports on how Apple's latest quarter financial results were below expectations. In fact, what you probably won't hear is that excluding one-time charges related to restructuring and the purchase of Power Computing, Inc., Apple lost only $24 million for the quarter.
October 14, 1997
Those of you who, like myself, prefer to lag technology and pay less, may be interested to hear that Mac cloner MacTell is introducing a 200-MHz 603e-based PowerPC Mac clone with some good bells and whistles priced at $800. I don't have all the details, but this in turn may put extraordinary price pressure on older Macs. Even now used Mac IIci machines can be had for $100-$150, and as I can personally testify these are very capable word processing, e-mail and every-day use computers.
October 7, 1997
Rumor on the net has Apple introducing three new G3-based Power Macs in November. Get this: The low-end model is a 233-MHz G3 (remember that's levels above any computer now shipping), 32 megs of SDRAM (fast access memory), a 24x CD-ROM, 3 PCI slots, and—ready?—the price is reportedly $1999. (The original reported price of $1650 turns out to be the dealer pricing. Oops!)
October 2, 1997 — Seybold SF '97
The computer news both in and out of Seybold 97 has been coming hot and heavy, but I'll do my best to catch up with everything. First, here's some of the news I gathered and stuff I saw at Seybold:
- Adobe will announced PageMill 3.0 either end of 1997 or beginning of 1998. The feature-set has not yet been finalized but it should support more html tags and may include cascading style sheets.
- Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects will both be updated in 1998.
- The Newer Technology G3-based MaxPower+ screams. In Photoshop, I applied an unsharp mask to a 32 meg file. It took about 3 seconds. This board will basically fit into any 604e-based machine, be it an Apple, UMAX or Power Computing model.
- Easily winning my award for best of show was Creator 2, a combination page layout and illustration program. This $650 package made so many things so easy, I'd be ready to pitch PageMaker and Illustrator and buy it, if it weren't so expensive. It is a professional tool, after all. Definitely a four-star product.
- Apple was out in force. Word at the show was that Apple will introduce a couple of new G3-based machines on November 11. These will be faster than anything on the market today. Additionally, it sounds like the emate, a giant hit in the educational market, will be re-packaged or perhaps re-made as a device for the general public (with hopefully a lower price than the current $700).
Outside of Seybold, Motorola announced that it, like IBM, will be using copper technology in its new PowerPC chips and that we in the desktop world should begin seeing these chips next summer. How fast are they? 1000 MHz, according to newspaper reports. Whew.
Net rumors have it that the partnership between Apple and UMAX (the only strong remaining licensee of the MacOS) is actually growing. From the sounds of it, UMAX will start doing a lot of the hardware R&D which Apple did previously. It's expensive work, and frankly, UMAX is pretty good at it. Apple seems to be attempting a revenue shift to a more software-based model. I think it's long overdue.
September 28, 1997
Apple starts a new ad campaign tonight. If you see it, let me know what you think.
September 25, 1997
Amazingly, Apple is getting set to introduce MacOS 8.1 (aka "Bride of Buster") in November. While this is something of a bug-squash project for the just-introduced MacOS 8, there's also enough really cool features to make this a very worthwhile upgrade. It includes: