Happy
Birthday Apple Macintosh
We’d
be remiss if we didn’t note that we have recently had the
semi-annual MacWorld, followed by the 20th birthday of
the Macintosh, first announced in January 1984.
Since I was there for its birth (as a consultant to Apple on
the vagaries of the corporate computing market), I’d like to wish
the Mac a very happy birthday.
No
need to rehash all the old history of why Apple, who has the ability
to design incredibly appealing products, never got the Mac to be a
mainstream, high market share, winner.
It is a product with amazing durability, and an enduring
charm to its very loyal audience.
I still sit down at a Mac laptop when I want to write
without thinking at all about the computer.
Apple
continues to also be a brand with worldwide recognition and its iPod
music player line has created a market of its own.
On the train coming home from LinuxWorld last night, I
enjoyed watching a young man who might not have been alive in 1984
taking a brand new mini-iPod out of its wrappings and setting it up.
It was the first time I had seen it in the flesh and I could
immediately see the appeal of its small size and sleek design. So it’s too expensive versus its more powerful big
brothers. So what.
In some circles, form will always be more important than
function, given that a product is at least satisfactory at both.
And
for those business users, SOHO (and occasionally corporate), Apple
and Microsoft had a nice birthday present.
A new, refurbished version of Microsoft office for the Mac is
available for admiration, with availability later in the first
quarter.
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