I would say that the iMac back in, what, 1998(?) was what made Apple mainstream and cool again, and the next step was the iPod.
Exactly. Because they used entirely off-the-shelf parts, IBM didn’t have any enforceable hardware patents to block other companies like Compaq and HP from selling their own version of an IBM PC, and because they didn’t have full control of the operating system either, they couldn’t stop Microsoft from selling the OS to those other companies. IBM made a mistake that in the long run may have benefited computer users in general, but sure sucked for them!
I don’t know. A lot of companies felt “you can’t go wrong buying from Big Blue.” I think IBM’s established presence in the business market would have carried the IBM PC far, even if the architecture had remained proprietary.
And in some ways, I think we all lost out because of that long period of near-absolute Wintel dominance. Certainly we would have achieved common standards for such things as word processing software a lot faster if one OS hadn’t had such overwhelming market dominance for so long. If several separate OSes and hardware architectures had achieved significant market penetration, software companies would have had to make sure their product’s files could be opened on all of the common platforms, not just one.
In fact if IBM had had their way, their OS/2 operating system and PS/2 line of computers would have taken over the market. They would have kept that architecture closed to this day, if they could have.
Microsoft would probably still be around, but in a lesser role — as a publisher of office apps and language implementations for OS/2. Compaq, Dell, and other clone makers either wouldn’t exist, or if they did, they would be licensing their right to build compatible hardware from IBM.
True. Compaq’s main challenge was to reverse-engineer IBM’s BIOS firmware in a legally kosher way — which meant being able to prove that they’d reproduced its functions without reading IBM’s code. It wasn’t easy finding qualified engineers to do that, since IBM had published their code freely, in the PC’s technical reference manuals.
Yep, in fact I used to use an MS optical mouse (with my Mac), but Musicat was talking about the PCs themselves.
Market cap is a financial popularity contest that doesn’t really mean jack to this question. Having a large MC is nice when you want to buy other companies (just ask AOL about that), but in terms of overall performance and whether the company has built a viable long-term strategy, it’s a useless metric (again, see AOL).
FYI, Apple may have the 2nd highest market cap in the NYSE today, but the all-time market cap leader was Microsoft, which in 2000 had a market cap of $604 billion ($757 billion, adjusted for inflation).
Really? I’ve seen “Macs are the suck” in just about every thread on Macs, Apple, Steve Jobs, or the price of apricots in Tibet for the past, I dunno 20 years. Mac vs PC pissing wars have been a staple of recreational on-line dumbassery ever since the first 14 year old got his first AOL account. And generally speaking, once the phrase “fanboy” gets uttered, it’s time to stop reading the article/thread because that’s the signal that all the adults have left the room.
Well, it was cool and then it wasn’t for a while, here’s how it became cool again:
1998 iMac–1st inklings of coolness
2001 iPod–very cool, reacquainted everyone with the brand
2007 iPhone–explosion of utter coolness, the thing that caused people to want to seriously look at switching back to Mac for their computers.
Apple did stuff at the same time to make the switching path easy too. The introduction of Boot Camp to allow people to boot into Windows on their Mac was a big deal for the people who couldn’t switch because the software they needed for work and such was Windows only.
I think Apple always had a loyal user base, but it wasn’t really cool. I recall in the late 90s using Apple computers and everyone hated it as they were saying,“In the real world no one uses them, so I am getting a skill that’s useless.” Not really true, but that’s how I felt. I wanted to be using a PC with Windows.
I felt like I do when I use Quattro Pro or Lotus 123 in an Excel world. 
To me there didn’t seem to be a level of coolness till at leat the iMac.
Wasn’t the big selling point of that, that it was easy to set up. Basically just plug it in right out of the box?
I never owned one, but wasn’t the original Macintosh computer just as easy to set up as an iMac?
To start up and run applications, yes, it was easy. And after Appletalk and SCSI support were added circa 1986, connecting peripherals was also usually quick and painless.
Usually.
But one of the iMac’s big selling points in 1998 was how easy it was to get online — at least compared to other machines of the time, including previous Macs.
cmyk:
True, hence my classification of my response as a nitpick (to “any PC Hardware”) rather than an actual rebuttal.
Gotchya. After I posted, I figured someone might nitpick on the fact they manufacture peripherals, but thought in context of the quote itself, most would follow what I meant (that and I missed the edit window).
They make the Zune and Xbox too, but no real laptop or desktop to run their flagship OS.
And RE: the OP,
I’ve used a Mac since '85, and was working with one professionally in '92. Before Windows 95, it was a no brainer to use in Desktop Publishing. When the Internet really took off, around '94/'95, Apple was losing touch, but the graphics industry was heavily invested, and Apple as a company and a brand had a user base whose loyalty to the product and enthusiasm for the platform was unmatched. From about '95 - '97, things were capital-B Bleak. You could almost hear Apple’s death rattle… Yet, we stuck by. Frustrated in so many ways, but held hope.
Then what do you know, Jobs came back, and seemingly overnight, reinvented Apple by showing the world computers needn’t be utilitarian, clunky beige boxes with the first jellybean iMac in '98.
I think the reaction was profound. It sent a shockwave through the PC industry, spawning copycats. More people started to realize this is more than just a nerd-terminal, and was quickly becoming a household appliance.
Then, Steve threw the classic OS out the window, and somewhat ungracefully, brought Mac users OSX. This changed the way the Mac worked with the world at large, and allowed Apple the much needed backbone to begin forging a modern and flexible OS.
Then the iPod. The Apple stores. The iPhone. The solid, aluminum bodies and pristine industrial design. The iPad…
Innovation everyone is copying, but they’ll never, ever match the sort of integration full-on Mac users enjoy, and that makes all the difference.
To sum it up, 1998 opened the market’s eyes, and by 2002, more consumers than ever realized how far Apple had come, and how ahead in innovation, usability and and style they were over anyone else.
Yes, I remember my Imac coming with just one instruction card with three steps, in big letters with colorful illustrations. You could be on the internet within 10 minutes of getting the thing home.
The original Apple Macintosh was easy to setup, but, relatively speaking, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do with it, unless you were, say, a graphics professional and had bought a bunch of expensive software. It also had a tiny black-and-white screen, so it wasn’t the best for playing games.
The rise of the internet meant that there was already plenty of content ready for you to enjoy, and the Imac got you to it in what was then the easiest and most attractive manner possible.
Yeah but in those days, an IBM PC or Tandy Clone wasn’t good for anything but professionals, either, in relative terms. All of the game action was on early consoles, the C=64, the Atari 800 etc., or the Apple ][.
And I think there may still be a lot of people who don’t realize that. They heard all the “Apple vs. Microsoft” talk over the years, and assume it’s all about the OS. But at its heart Apple is a hardware company, which is why they don’t want their stuff running on other people’s hardware.
CNet, 1997:
Even if you think of Apple as a hardware company, the iTunes store is a big profit center.
And as for that infamous quote from Michael Dell, he wasn’t alone in thinking that Apple was doomed; remember the June 1997 cover of Wired magazine?
Yes, because it came in different colors. (You know: “Think different.” Different colors.)