Linked by Thomas Hormby on Wed 17th Nov 2004 19:43 UTC
According to many economists, Gilbert Amelio is the savior of businesses in trouble. With this in mind, the board of directors at Apple decided to appoint Gil Amelio to the board after reporting another huge loss in 1994. At the time, Michael Spindler was the head of Apple, and sales in every division. The board accepted Spindler's resignation and appointed Gil Amelio to the helm of Apple.
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I don't believe Jobs saved Apple. In fact I think they would've flourished under Amelio. Apple's losses had been falling and Jobs ousted Amelio in the small window before they made a profit.
They were close the quarter before and that was without the first PowerMac G3s, their most popular product for a long time. 2 quarters earlier the large loss was mainly made up of NeXT purchase.
These profits would have been on the back of a software-based approach. We would have had Mac clones for people who didn't want to pay for looks. With Jobs, the age-old problem continues - "I would buy a Mac but they're expensive". So market share falls and businesses continue to favour an open platform.
Apple would've continued to sell comparatively expensive but desirable Macs alongside the clones. Would they have been as good looking as the iMac? We don't know - if they were looking to differentiate themselves from the clones, maybe Ives would've been given the freedom. 20th anniversary iMac wasn't half bad.
We also saw what happened to the PowerPC when Motorola became dissaffected. One minute they were making Mac clones and the PowerPC was even ahead of x86 in Mhz terms. The next, Apple cancels the clones, Motorola announces 'from now on we'll treat Apple as any other customer'. And the G3 and G4 languish for years.
All this and an open OS X/Rhapsody - and an x86 version - would've grown market share. Again, we don't know whether it would've been as good looking as OS X, but it would have been the same OS. And the users who now use Windows instead would've appreciated that.
I think people are too lost in the beauty of the iMac to realise that Apple were on a good course - one that would've given us some choice in this industry.