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It�s not a Game!
In the past few days, I received some hundred e-mail inquiries and phone calls, asking for PIOS' position regarding the latest announcements by Cupertino's Apple Computer Inc. To tell you the truth: It's hard to judge. Some "confidential" marked e-mails from people who cannot spell CHRP in the correct way ("...CHIRP...") have not been verified yet. Lots of people proven to be reliable don�t pick up their phones. At the major players (and there are only three) even high degree managers and executives do not really know what's going on. I hear that negotiations on top level are permanently continuing. Maybe it's hard to negotiate with people who like to ride the buffalo, but I believe the serious pros give their best efforts in a business manner.
Let me give you only one example: In all the existing license agreements you find the following wording:
" Apple will offer to Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-bearing license to Apple's next
Major Release of the MacOS (8.0) for use in the Territory on Apple's then standard terms and conditions
for that version of the MacOS. The term of the agreement for MacOS 8 will be similar to
Section .. of this Agreement."
In other words: The recent action by Apple to force licensees to pay extraordinary high royalties or, maybe, even to refuse to enter into new agreements for MacOS 8, is proving that Apple Computer Inc.'s new management is not somebody you would buy a used car from.
To abandon CHRP would be a punch in the face of IBM, Motorola, and all their partners, who have spent millions of dollars into that exciting idea. And, as a minor effect, it would drive Apple Computer Inc. into bankruptcy even faster than in the past.
Stefan Domeyer (President & CEO, PIOS Computer AG)
(new 12-Sep-97)
Mac OS 8.0.1 CHRP support work continues ...
One of the most troubling questions in the Mac industry as of late has been the future of the platform's open hardware standard, CHRP (short for Common Hardware Reference Platform). When Apple announced that it had not current plans to license the Mac OS for CHRP, many assumed that the standard was dead. New facts, however, contradict that assumption.
In documents relating to the most recent build of Mac OS 8.0.1 (code-named Bride of Buster), rumors discovered extensive evidence that Apple developers are still hard at work on the CHRP support components of the update, and priorities do not seem to have changed. How this fits into Steve Jobs' "master plan" isn't yet known, but we can rest assured that it does have its place there.
Mac OS 8.0.1 is in its second alpha version, and should run through the alpha stage towards beta some time in early-to-mid October.
Stefan Domeyer (President & CEO, PIOS Computer AG)
Some Quotes
(new 8-Sep-97)However, Saloky said that prominent Macintosh developers have agreed to port their applications to alternative operating systems from Be Inc. and the Linux derivative from Unix Systems Laboratories Inc. if Motorola decides to build CHRP computers for those operating systems.
The company has also apparently found a way around licensing issues involving Version 8 of the Macintosh operating system. Although there is a dispute as to whether Motorola has a license for the new OS 8, he said agreements with distribution partners will allow Motorola to ship new models with OS 8, although it was unclear whether the software would be on the machines or bundled with them.
Motorola's Director of Marketing Dennis Saloky (in ZDNet on Sept. 5, 1997)
Playing Monopoly with the Macintosh
Steve Jobs is playing Monopoly with the Mac platform, and we're the losers. Apple's actions yesterday eliminated its competition, the Motorola and Power Computing PowerPC 750 systems that outperformed Apple's new models. They eliminated the best price/performance line in the Macintosh market. They killed any development of third-party notebook Macs and advanced Mac computers.
This will not help Apple. Instead, this will accelerate the migration of Apple's Macintosh customers and partners to other platforms. I can only conclude that Steve Jobs is crazy or that he has some secret plan, presumably related to "Network Computers," in which the Macintosh platform no longer matters.
Ric Ford, Chief Editor of MacIntouch (USA)
"Apple is still sending a confused message," he said. "The company found out that other people are adept at selling and marketing the Macintosh and it doesn't like it. But it's not going to do any good ... In the history of computing, the number of companies that have tried to ride a closed, proprietary operating system to the future is zero ... correct me if I'm wrong."
James Meyer, director of research with Janney Montgomery Scott Inc. of Philadelphia, Pa
Stan Flack, president and publisher of the Mac Central site on the World Wide Web, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, plans to send Apple today a print-out of 20,000 electronic signatures he collected on a petition asking Apple not to restrict licensing.
Q: Is it safe to buy a Mac clone today?
A: Yes. You won't get the latest version of the Macintosh operating system software -- Mac OS 8 -- because Apple won't license it to clone makers. But you can upgrade a clone with the older System 7.6 for $99. So, if you find a clone that has the features you want at $100 or more below the price of an equivalent Apple machine, you can still save money by purchasing the clone and upgrading it yourself.
San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer Mike Langberg
Mac cloning stood to become even more competitive in the near future. That was Apple's promise for the "Common Hardware Reference Platform'' -- innovative new computers that third parties were building with less expensive commodity components while still running the Mac operating system. Apple has broken that promise.
Dan Gillmor (Mercury News Computing Editor)
So far, we've built a small number of interesting test cases; the most extreme one resides on a 1.44 Mb floppy, incorporating the core BeOS and our browser. Take a bare bones PC clone costing about $350 (sans hard disk, but including a $19.99 Ethernet card), connect it to the network, boot it from the floppy and "presto," you're browsing the Web.
Jean-Louis Gasse�, CEO od Be Inc., Menlo Park, California
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