🚀 go-pugleaf

jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) wrote:


>:      You're probably right.  But, seeing as how many companies that make both
>: Mac and IBM PC software quickly jumped to the PowerPC platform, I would bet 
>: that they would make at least an effort to get something out within a couple
>: weeks of Win95's release.

>    I don't agree.

>    Many products were quickly updated for PowerMac, but I believe that most
>of them were not. Even a popular app like word only got native something
>like 8 months after the PowerMac release.

You theory isn't holding water well so far- an entire two days after
Win95's release.  Go to your newstand, and browse a Windows magazine.
It's filled with Win95 product ads.  Even if the benefits aren't as
large as going from a slow X40 emulated app to a native Power PC app,
the benefits are real.  And if they not, companies know that being the
first out of the block with the "95" label on their product will
guarantee sales- if people will line up after 12 am for Windows 95,
they'll be suckers enough to buy products just because they have the
"95" label on them.

And of course, who's to say Win95 won't sell in the tens of millions
before '96?  Regardless of how meager the improvements it might offer,
that alone will guarantee a flood of apps.  A good example is the
recent Microsoft 95 versions.  They offer more functions than simply
being 32-bit and support long filenames.  People will upgrade to 95
apps for the same reason they ugpraded from Word 2.0 to 6.0, and every
other program revision- new features, even if they don't need them.

>    Since emulated apps run much slower in PowerMacs than native apps,
>I would say that the advantage of upgrading was higher than the advantage
>of upgrading from Win3.1 to Win95.

But 95 users will want 95 apps, naturally.  There's going to be a lot
of first-time 95 users as well, new Pentium sales haven't exactly
slowed down, and the hype will only help sell more systems.  95 makes
PC's a _lot_ more attractive to first-time buyers.


>    By the way. Apple already sold more PowerMacs than what they were
>expeting to; they are doing well finantially; they are building a
>new factory to increase production; there are several companys
>producing Mac clones already, and it seems that next year even IBM
>will make them; several products will be released this year
>and the next, from OpenDoc to Copland to the Hardware Reference
>Platform.

>   It seems to me that the probability of Apple and/or IBM fading
>away quickly is not higher than the probability of MS and/or Intel
>fading away quickly.

The difference is, all of this was against a vastly inferior (in most
aspects) Windows 3.1 product.  The hype from Windows 95 has been
ridiculous, and it is a competitive-at least- OS to the Mac's, and
radically changes the PC's architecture where the Mac can no longer be
the only machine that's easy to use.  Intel will no doubt release
mucho P6 hype as well.  Plus, business see's Microsoft with a definite
long-term strategy, their "next generation 95" is already out- NT.

>   Not that this will stop some people from expecting Apple to die
>tomorow for the rest of their lives. :-)

I don't think Apple will die, but market share may be a concern.  95
is the reason for the dire predictions- if 95 was also a year away, I
doubt you would see these negative predictions, and Apple would be
regarded as having a bright future.  It just might have liscenced the
OS in time.