OCTOBER 6th, 1997 AppleCORE MIKE LAMBERT ([email protected]) A Very Connected Future for the Mac? "Trust me for a few months," Steve Jobs told attendees during his keynote speech at the Seybold San Francisco conference last week . If I had heard him say that a month, or even a couple weeks ago, I would have added to that, "Yeah, if Apple has that long." But, as often happens following a cool-down period, I might actually consider taking Jobs’ advice this time. Following the publication last month of an AppleCORE column entitled "Is The Sky Falling Yet," where I questioned the veracity of Steve Jobs’ motives in leading Apple into the future, several readers wrote, urging me to back off and give Jobs a chance. In that column, I wrote that Jobs was placing the Mac platform in jeopardy, that he was making the Mac a closed platform once more, and that our future never appeared more "ominously unclear." One reader, Patrick Henry, included in his response to my column a link to a special report posted on Robert Morton’s Apple Recon Web site entitled "Going Soft". (Apple Recon, by the way, is a marvelous source of Mac-related news, information and prediction; it’s content is geared toward prospective Apple investors, but it’s always compelling reading.) The report is an evaluation of a Barron’s cover story , concerning why Microsoft’s stock might hit a plateau in the coming months. Morton, in examining Microsoft’s future, also paints a glorious possible future for Apple, where Mac Network Computers, along with many other client platforms, are working hand-in-hand with Rhapsody servers. I haven’t been able to forget the "Going Soft" article since first reading it — what a breathtaking prospect. At the time (about a month ago), Apple-branded, Mac OS-based NCs were just another rumor floating across the Web, but more details concerning this new breed of Macintosh seem to surface each week (along with revelations that Rhapsody may support yet another processor, DEC’s Alpha). "We are at a turning point in history — it is really that big of a deal," wrote Patrick Henry in an ongoing virtual discussion of the "Going Soft" article. "The really neat thing is us Mac owners can act like we knew it all the time." I won’t rehash Morton’s special report here, but I urge you — very strongly — to read it. Is this where Jobs is taking us? (I’ll certainly consider going along for the ride.) "You guys have stuck with us through thin, and I want to deliver some thick to you," Jobs continued in his Seybold speech last week. "You are going to see machines in the not-so-distant future which blow away anything the clone vendors had or have, and which blow away any performance of a Wintel box." That could be typical Jobsian posturing, but I believe him, as Apple will always have the performance edge (as long as they hold onto the PowerPC chip). Have I changed my mind about Steve Jobs? Is this a 180-degree turnaround in my assessment of his decisions? Well, it’s not so much a change of mind or heart as it is looking at the whole situation from a different perspective. (I have been known to consider other’s views from time to time.) I still don’t agree with Jobs’ on many issues — chiefly the Mac clone debacle — but if any predictions in the Apple Recon report hold true, it will be an interesting new era for Apple and the Mac, thanks (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) to Steve Jobs. |
