So Apple is a closed shop?

Competition and the Mac

As I work for Apple, I try to stay out of squables were my highly biased viewpoint is usually not worth the effort to write down, but it seems that people are again harping on about Macintosh computers being available only from Apple, and about how uncompetitive this is. What I find amazing is that they completely ignore that fact that Apple is just one hardware manufacturer in the personal computing world. Does the fact that it is Apple somehow mean that it does not compete with Compaq? How about IBM, Dell, NEC? Do these companies not make computers? Oh, I agree you can only get Macs from Apple, but there is no law that says you must make available to your competitor your number one advantage (Apple's Macintosh Operating system). No matter how much I think totally killing the clones was a bad idea, I have to say, there was nothing requiring Apple to start cloning in the first place, and it was totally up to Apple weather or not cloning was helping Apple compete, or simply stealing their customers.

Apple is competing with every other computer manufacture there is. Now Microsoft? That's a different kettle of fish. Did you know that Apple used to sell Macs that didn't come with MacOS? In fact these Macs did not even come with an Apple operating system at all. Some of Apple's Workgroup servers came with IBM's AIX operating system. Something that is painfully obvious to many people is the fact that it is impossible to buy any Intel based PC without a Microsoft operating system of some sort on it. Call that competition? Sure any computer manufacturer you like, as long as you want Microsoft's operating system, and usually, Intel's chips. Not to mention whatever other sotware Microsoft feels that hardware manufactures should be shipping this year (you'd better not want Netscape or Quicktime on your computer, becauser you sure as hell won't be getting it.

If people like Fred Langa want to complain about the MacOS only being available on Apple computers, maybe they should relook at history, and Microsoft's old "MS-DOS on all or MS-DOS on none" licensing agreements that effectively made it impossible for Apple to get their MacOS for Intel operating system (yes it existed well before Windows '95) out of the lab and into the mainstream. It doesn't take to much of a genius to work that when Michael Dell says "unless its free we can't afford to bundle it" that your wasting money developing an Intel operating system.

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