Ken Whitcomb (ken_at_imageguild.com) wrote:
> It's inductive logic, Apple has the ability to make the most incredible
> handheld computing device imaginable. For those on this list (and some that
> aren't) we can't fathom having that jewel in one's hand and not capitalizing
> on it.
Where's that jewel? Apple owns Newton technology, but is it still a
valuable asset? Newton technology is just backup tapes of stuff nobody
still at Apple could make heads or tail of. Without the brilliant people
who created the Newton, this is of little value, and those people were
laid off even months before the Newton's official demise. It's not very
likely they would wish to work for Apple ever again, and then they've
moved on to different projects anyway. To most of them, the Newton is history.
If Apple has got something, it's mostly patents. There are some
technologies that can be isolated from the rest and put to use elsewhere
-- Rosetta comes to mind, although there may be others. Apple will have
patented some parts of the Newton technology -- I don't know how much and
what exactly --, and even if they have to re-implement it from scratch
(which would even be a good thing), they have the right to do that,
whereas others have not. That, and that alone, gives Apple a slight edge
over the competition. But Apple's window of opportunity has come and
gone, and they don't have the resources now to create another PDA that
would compare favouritely to the Newton. Microsoft, on the other hand,
has nearly unlimited resources to throw at such a project, and they even
have key members of Apple's original Newton team -- they could do it, if
they wanted to (alas, they don't).
> Of course, I've noticed that there are one or two people here that think
> that Apple can't do any of what I've described (least of all make computers
> that work) and it must have been a pure chaotic accident that they brought
> the Newton OS and the Message Pads and the eMate to market, so the dreamers
> must naturally be wrong....
Well, I'm a Mac enthusiast myself -- I've been working with Macs for
about 12 years now (and writing for Macintosh magazines for more than 7
years), and I always prefer a Mac over a PC when I have the choice.
Having said that, Apple as of now isn't the Apple of the early 90s,
raking in the dough from the ludicrous margins of Macintosh sales and
investing it in luxuries like the Human Interface Group or the Advance
Technologies Group -- and the Newton. Macs are still sold at ludicrous
margins, but its shrinking market share means that Apple has to be a very
focused company, abandoning, even to their long-term disadvantage,
everything that doesn't pay off quickly. Shareholders aren't as patient
as they used to be, which doesn't help either.
- Michael
Michael J. Hussmann
E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW: http://michael-hussmann.de
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