The Author – Bart Busschots
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Feb
22
Past Visions of Apple’s Future – MacWorld 1997 Ten Years On
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 22, 2007 at 3:43 am
By pure accident I stumbled across the full MacWorld keynote for 1997 on YouTube this evening and watched it all. This was the keynote where it was announced that Steve Jobs was re-joining Apple. It was a very interesting keynote because it didn’t actually introduce a single tangible product, instead it gave us an analysis of where Apple saw itself in 1997, and where Steve and the rest of the new board wanted it to go. Looking back now with 10 years worth of hind-sight it’s interesting to see how different the Apple we have is to the one we were promised.
Before reading on you may want to watch the 1997 keynote which is available on YouTube:
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs[/tags]
The first thing to note is that a lot of this keynote is waffle. Remember, nothing real was actually announced, so what else could you expect?! However, there are are a few things about it that jumped out at me. The first is the least important, but note-worhty none-the-less. The stage is almost the same. In fact, not just the stage, but even the design of the slides on the presentation has not really changed in 10 years. The background is still an off-black gradient, the text is the same color and almost the same font, and the look and feel were pretty much exactly as they are today. The most obvious difference is that in 2007 there was a large OS X logo on each side of the screen, while in 1997 it was a large Apple logo. When you look at the presentation from 1997 the only hints you get that the presentation is ten years old are the content and the amount of hair Steve has! The basic formula is unchanged. I guess Apple are smart enough to realize that ‘if it ain’t broke [you shouldn’t] fix it’ š
Where Apple Was
OK, so on to the actual content of the talk. Steve starts off by introducing the new board and we get lots of waffle in a heavily edited video of the board members talking lots but say very little. After that initial bout of waffle we hit the first bit of real content and it concerns where Apple saw themselves as being in 1997.
Apple had had a very bad time if things in the lead up to the 1997 MacWorld keynote. Their revenues were plummeting and the industry analysts and the press were writing Apple off. People though of Apple as an asthmatic ant that was about to shuffle off its mortal coil any day now. However, Steve pointed at two niche markets where Apple were not just relevant but still dominant. These two markets were to be the foundation on which the new Apple would be built. The new Apple has by-and-large been a success, but not because of either of these markets. In fact, Apple has pretty much lost both.
The first market mentioned is one I’m very familiar with, education. Apple claimed about a 60% share of that market in 1997, today they just don’t seem to be a player in it at all. 1997 happens to have been my first year in college. I was a pure Windows user in those days and I knew nothing about Macs but one of my abiding memories of computing in NUI Maynooth(NUIM) in 1997 was that about 50% of the computers in the student computer rooms (or PACRs in NUIM speak) were Macs. It’s now 10 years on, I have my degree, and I’m now a member of staff in the computer center in NUIM. How are we doing when it comes to Macs in our PACRs today? We have NONE, not a single one! NUIM PACRs are a Windows only shop in 2007. Is NUIM special? I really don’t think so.
In 1997 Apple were the dominant player in computers in education, now they are just not a player at all. What ever good Apple have done in the last 10 years they should be very ashamed of loosing their lead in the educational market. Apple still pay lip-service to education by providing discounts to students but any pretense at a real commitment died when the eMac was discontinued last year. The eMac was a great product. My first Mac was an eMac and I loved that machine. Sure, it wasn’t the fastest machine on the planet, but it was still a very solid machine and at a price tag of around 700 Euro it was easily affordable by schools and universities. When the eMac was discontinued and not replaced I knew that Apple had ended their drive to get Macs into schools. Personally I think that is a real pity and a real mistake.
The second market place in which Apple claimed dominance in 1997 was the ‘creative professionals’ market. You know, the people who made videos, produced printed materials, etc.. In the publishing industry the Mac was king, and claimed about an 80% share in 1997. That’s almost up to Microsoft monopoly levels! But despite that insane lead this market has been lost too. This is not my area of expertise so I can’t speak authoritatively but as I see it Apple lost this market by not supporting their users sufficiently. The Mac gained it’s dominance by offering these people what they needed in the way they liked it. Sure, it was great that the OS was user-friendly and ahead of the crowd graphically, but that’s not why people in this market used Macs. They used Macs because all the software they needed to do their jobs was developed for the Mac. Apple seem to have let things slide and soon you could get software of a similar quality on the cheaper PC platform. Apple probably should have worked more closely with vendors to ensure that the Mac platform remained ahead of the crowd. They didn’t and they lost the market.
So far it looks like Apple missed their mark totally, but perhaps that was inevitable. Apple was in a very very bad way in 1997 and customers were getting annoyed. Many would seem to have lost all confidence in Apple by then so it could certainly be argued that the battle for those markets was already lost in 1997 and that what ever changes Apple could have brought in would always have been too little too late. I’m not sure how much of the blame we should lay at Apple’s feet for these losses but the reality remains that 10 years on Apple has lost its dominance in the two markets it appeared to have cornered in 1997.
Apple’s Core Assets
The next part of Steve’s speech addressed what Steve saw as Apple’s core assets back in 1997. It has to be said he was bang on the money. He listed just two things, Apple’s often fanatical users, and Apple’s OS. No one could argue that the Apple fans have gone away. They haven’t, and if anything Apple’s move to Intel seems to be fostering more and more Apple converts. Just one look at the audience at MacWorld or the Apple WWDC shows that Mac fans are as devoted to Apple as they ever were. Apple may have lost its dominance in two markets but it didn’t loose its fans.
The second asset Steve mentioned was the Apple OS. Back in 1997 many saw it as a lost cause. The rumors were that Apple was going to abandon it. Had the board not been changed in 1997 that may even have happened, but Steve recognized the OS as the core of Apple, and took Mac OS to a whole new level with OS X. Before OS X there were user-friendly operating systems, and there were Unix/Linux operating systems, OS X was the first to give you both in one OS. It was designed to be trivial to use by total newbies while still giving power users more than they had ever gotten before. They succeeded. OS X is seven years old this year but it’s still fresh and still innovative. Tiger holds its own against Windows Vista just fine, and we stillhave Leopard to look forward to some time in the next few months! Apple have certainly made the most of the Mac OS in the last 10 years.
A Promise of Big Partnerships
The 1997 keynote will probably be remembered for ever as the Apple keynote where Bill Gates addressed the crowd. He did it via satellite link rather than appearing live on stage (probably safer) but Bill Gates spoke at MacWorld and that was truly astounding. Apple announced a 5 year partnership with MS, Steve spoke of building positive relationships, and Gates spoke of embracing the Mac platform and working together with Apple into the future. Sure, some aspects of this deal linger, we still get Office on OS X (kinda), but for the most part this promise of a happy collaboration has evaporated. Part of the deal was that IE would be the default browser on the Mac, that’s gone (a good thing IMO), and what’s more MS don’t even release IE for the Mac at all anymore! Office on the Mac was to get an equal amount of major releases as on the PC. Sure, we still have Office on OS X, but if you think MS take it even remotely seriously then how can you explain the lack of a universal binary in this day and age? Sure, MS and Apple both still pay lip-service to cooperation, but it’s obvious that neither company’s heart is in it in 2007.
It was also heavily implied that the MS deal would be the first of many. Ten years on I see no evidence of that at all. On the contrary, Apple’s driving goal seems to be to remove as many dependencies as possible, and to be as independent as possible. That attitude is not compatible with the kind of partnerships Steve was evangelizing as the future in 1997.
Conclusions
In many ways the last ten years have not been good for Apple. It’s been a story of lost markets and lost partnerships. Of the three big thrusts of Steve’s 1997 keynote two have come to nothing. Yet Apple is far stronger than it was in 1997. Most importantly, it’s now growing rather than shrinking. The Apple brand is as strong as ever, Apple have a reputation for continued innovation, and their bottom line is probably the healthiest it’s ever been. Sure, niche markets have been lost, but the core assets have been retained, and new mainstream markets have been tapped. The Apple of 2007 doesn’t look much like the one Steve was setting us up to expect back in 1997, but no one can deny thaT the Apple of 2007 is a very healthy one!
Interesting post Bart, and I like the new site design.
1) Did the iMac not replace the eMac. I know it’s 960 euro, which is significantly more expensive even taking inflation into account, but it is a far better machine.
2) Have Apple given up on education everywhere, or just Europe?
3) Office 2008 is the universal Binary for Macs. I think Microsoft aren’t in a rush because most people coudn’t give a fuck what version of Office they are running, so long as they are running Office. It’s not like iWork is about to catch up. Sure they might release a spreadsheet, but Microsoft have been ahead in this game since the first minute.
I thought you might appreciate the minimalism of the new design Des š
As for point 1, no, the eMac came after the first iMac and lived it’s whole life as the iMac’s cheap little brother. It was based off the design of the very first iMac but with a bigger CRT.
I’m not sure on point two. The end of the eMac is certainly a bad sign. I’ll check with Allison to see what the story is in the states.
To some extent you’re right about office on the Mac. iWork is not really a competitor yet. It may be some day but not yet. I still think that the lack of a universal binary for Office X shows a lack of interest in the Mac platform on behalf of MS. If you watch the last 15 minutes or so of the video and the piece by Bill Gates the attitudes expressed by both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have totally changed. I think the lack of a recent Office product on the Mac is a symptom of the change in attitudes.
hey Bart great article, would just like to point out that that scene with Gates was featured in the beggining and end of the film pirates of Silicon valley, well worth watching
Also, just to take up Des’s point on the i-macs; my secondary schools upgraded from apple lisa’s to all i-macs in 2000, that was about 20-25 computers so perhaps he has a point there.
As for losing the creative production market, i can’t argue that they are no longer clear victors in that field but they have retained there reputation of excellence in the field of digital editing in both publishing and visual editing. I believe there was a large drop in mac sales for the purpose of audio production last year but from what i see they haven’t lost the market necessarily, they just aren’t the main player and this is usually only a plus for the consumer
Oh and one point you failed to touch on; Apple’s brand as there lead asset. Since then there has been the release of the i-pod which is a product that is marketed heavily using the reputation of the apple brand name, had anyone else have released the device would it have been as successful? Now this year they have announced the i-phone, the [i-]tv and a huge expansion of i-tunes. All of these products take instant credibility with the brand name they inherit by its reputation for quality and ability to make new ideas successful first time round
That’s a good point about the brand actually. They have nurtured the brand brilliantly. That mono-chrome apple with a missing bite is instantly recognized by people and what’s more is associated with quality.
The problem is in the a/v market that Adobe and all the other big players no longer exclusively release their products on Apple’s platform, if it ever did.
What really did for Macs two or three years ago here was the problems getting chips that were comparable to the PC based Intel chips. The PC became a viable alternative because they were allowed to ‘catch up’ in terms of performance.
And although now Apple has gone onto Intel’s architecture and has clawed back to where it was, the PC based solutions have retained the share they got. And comparable PCs are STILL somewhat cheaper than the mac for AV work and DTP.
Not a huge difference, but enough.
Many people just aren’t prepared to pay extra if a PC could do the job. That’s the sad reality because I do think the Mac is superior in build and in quality, and its OS is much easier to use and pretty innovatve.
Only Apple enthusiasts will pay extra, the rest of us buy the machine that does the most ‘bang for buck’ and to be honest the Apple machines have a ‘snobbish elitism’ attached to them even now.
Best thing Apple could do is cut prices a fair bit and advertise agressively in Europe and the US. Make it a machine that has the same games and multimedia capability as the vanilla PC for less money and people will buy Macs in droves, while still keeping purists happy.
Hi Trekky,
When it comes to AV we are talking about workstations and not low-end machines. In other words, in the Mac world we are talking the MacPro. If you compare a MacPro with an equivalently specked machine from Dell then you’ll see that Apple have dropped their prices. To say Apples are over-priced is a myth. It just isn’t true anymore.
Fascinating! I’m only about halfway through, but I have to comment about Apple being gone from the education market. I think they have definitely dropped in America, but in the 3 schools in my neighborhood, they’re right around half Macs. In fact, my son complained that his iBook G4 was too slow, because he’s used to using G5s in school! I think it depends on where you are, and also I think those schools that still have Macs will be turning more to Apple over time (they of course lag the market, so it will take them longer to get into the Intel-based Macs.
I’m glad to hear that things are looking better for Apple in terms of Education in America. Lets hope they build on that and perhaps also start to do better in education here in Europe. The loss of the eMac sends the wrong signal though š