the next NeXT 19 of march, 1997 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

Ric Ford of MacWeek said it best this week with, "[Apple] will likely shift gradually from the hardware business that fueled its past to a future centered on Rhapsody, its next-generation operating system". Read: Apple is no longer going to be a hardware company, and is instead going to focus on a single piece of software. Rhapsody. Yes, Apple is going to move in favor of it’s software (ahem) prowess rather than it’s hardware. Yet, it is Apple’s hardware that has kept the company alive.

The Mac operating system, at best, is comparable to Windows 95. At worst, the current Mac OS (I will not give you all of the version numbers for fear of scaring off everyone short of CPA’s) is comparable to Windows 3.1. Even the most zealous Mac supporters will not attempt the ludicrous comparison to the likes of NT, or the upcoming Windows 97, however. Even with 95, all one needs to say is "multitasking", or "type 11", and the conversation is, for all intensive purposes, over.

Am I saying that Windows 95 is BETTER than Mac OS 7.6 release 567382 turbo bug fix 28.573? No. What I am saying is that a comparison on features or numbers shows the operating system to be lacking. And, it is.

My concern is that Apple is following in the footsteps of NeXT. I am certain many of you can remember the day when NeXT abandoned the "black box" in favor of the "beige" one. The day when NeXT decided that it was moving to an all-software effort. The amusing thing about the switch was that the absolute best part about going NeXT was the hardware, not the software. After all, NeXT was the closest thing to the hardware dominance of the Amiga since, well, the Commodore Amiga. But the Unix based NeXT operating system was not nearly as impressive as the hardware. Even the Workbench operating system on the Amiga was more impressive software than NeXTStep.

It has been many years since NeXT abandoned hardware in favor of software only. Now Apple has picked up the company, and decided that it, too, is going to slowly start moving in favor of software. Although I applaud the effort for the competition that might be given Microsoft, I must question whether Apple is only walking in the footsteps of the company it purchased.

NeXT was going to evaporate within a matter of years whether Apple purchased them or not. The scheme of going software only was a bomb. That is why Apple could get NeXT and it’s founder for a mere 400 million smackers (which is a small percentage of the bucks Ross Perot put into the company only a few years back). Now it looks as though Apple is going to slowly move in the same footsteps, and this has me concerned.

If Apple is going to compete (read: beat) Microsoft, it needs to not only develop a superior and easily marketable operating system product for both Mac and PC systems, it also needs to sell superior hardware to accompany the original product. Why? Microsoft does not really make it’s profit on Windows 95. The real Microsoft profit comes from the tons of software it has an exclusive edge on producing for that operating system (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Schedule, programming languages, games, web browsers, etc, etc, etc..)

Apple will not be able to compete with Microsoft’s software expertise (excuse me while I visit the porcelain God - did I really just say that?). They should not try. Instead, it should create a far superior operating system (Rhapsody), that runs equally superior on Intel and Mac machines. Yet, the hitch is that the hardware Apple can "upgrade" you to when you start running Rhapsody makes the PC Clone equivalent look like a joke. In other words, the money will not be on the operating system – that is where you hook the customer. The money will come when you hook the customer on the product, and slowly defect them to your hardware. Ah. That is where the key to beating Microsoft lies. The key, because Microsoft does not develop their own hardware.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on the software. After all, the first order of business is to start having Pentium users switching to an Apple operating system. That is the first step. The second step is to show them after they have already invested in their new software that switching to different hardware will make their life even better. That is why Apple can never follow in the footsteps of the company they just recently acquired. Which is why I get a little concerned when I hear that Apple is giving up it’s hardware advantage in favor of the software end, which is still playing catch up.