day 7

parable of an innovator 4: mediocrity or planned dominance?

Apple was about to drive its bright yellow Mercury Villager into the Santa Clara river in our last episode. Looking over his shoulder before making a left turn onto a Highway 85 onramp, new CEO Gil Amelio swerves perilously near the guard rail. What is the New Strategy at Apple? What will turn around this 10- billion-dollar company? Licensing the MacOS is the obvious first step, but that will not be enough. In the long run, the only thing that will save Apple is its advanced technology. Apple has long been Microsoft's research lab. Now it's time for Apple to become its own R&D; partner. Technology has always been Apple's strong suit, and technology leadership is still its last great hope. It is difficult to say this in a nice way, but it has to be said: Microsoft software is really not very good. The Windows user interface is half a step above the UNIX command line. Plug-and-play is a joke. Windows95 is not making it into corporate shops because it is nothing new. Network interoperability is merely a weapon against Novell NetWare, and the applications stink. For example, even though Microsoft Office is fully featured, it has lots of quirky, buggy, and difficult "features." Windows95 is a minimal, transition OS, that is intended to fill the gap between Windows 3.x and Windows NT. Even though Microsoft is selling thousands of copies of Windows NT, it is still not a real system. If it weren't for the thousands of DOS machines in the installed base, nobody in their right mind would go to all of the trouble to bother with Windows95. What gives?

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