Open Letter

Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 11:22:41 -0400

To: Steve Jobs <sj@pixar.com>

From: Ric Ford <ricford@macintouch.com>

Subject: Open Letter about Apple Future



Sunday, Sept. 7, 1997

Good Morning, Steve -

We met briefly and pleasantly many years ago at a Macintosh event, which I'm sure you don't remember. I expect, though, that you have seen the MacInTouch web site and my critical response to the recent Apple licensing actions you drove. My response comes out of an intense, 12-year involvement with the Macintosh and tens of thousands of Mac customers (and partners). It comes from my concern that your actions are driving the Macintosh platform to a position where it will no longer be vital. And it comes from your public statements last year that you consider the Mac dead and gone, worthy only of "milking for all it's worth."

Tongue in cheek, I suggested that you might be crazy and in the same breath wrote what I really think: You have a secret plan, as you did in 1983 before you introduced the Macintosh. What's different now is this: I have a 12-year perspective on how Apple can screw up good technologies and waste good talent, and I now have a family and career dependent on the Macintosh. I can no longer afford blind faith. Like millions of other people, I have to make major personal and business decisions about the future. My business is supporting and analyzing computer systems, and I have to choose a computing platform that will be as rewarding as possible personally while being realistic economically.

Your actions have been confusing and threatening, and, for whatever reason, you have not shared your plan for Apple's future. I invite you now to do that. I'm going to pose essential questions, along with my best guesses at the answers. I hope you can provide real answers - concrete and truthful answers on which the Macintosh community can make informed choices about the future. If you cannot do that, we will continue to seek answers using whatever resources we can, until decisions about a future computing platform are unavoidable. (This may not be long.)

I want to thank you now for all that you have contributed to this community, and I truly hope that you can offer us, very soon, a realistic and detailed plan for a better computing future.

Sincerely yours,

Ric Ford

Questions about Apple Future:

1) What is the future of PowerPC-based Macintosh systems as we know them today? Will this business continue to contract in sales, development and market share?

Guess 1: You have burned your bridge with Motorola, and you are not willing to invest much in the Macintosh as we know it. You consider it old technology and a cash cow to be milked for new projects.

2) What is the future of Rhapsody? What will it cost? What will its application base be? How will it compete with Windows? On what hardware will it run? When, realistically, will a Rhapsody platform support a business the size of today's Mac business?

Guess 2: You plan to continue with Rhapsody as a cross-platform replacement for the Macintosh, and you are focussing more on Intel hardware than on PowerPC hardware. Apple will produce some new PowerPC systems in the next year, but the strategy is to move to Intel. You expect to run current Macintosh applications within a Rhapsody "blue box," and you have some big names - Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle - lined up to produce Rhapsody software. Rhapsody will be expensive to license, will have hardware compatibility limitations worse than Windows NT and will not supplant the Macintosh industry for several years, if at all.

3) What are you planning with Network Computers, and how does that relate to the Macintosh and Rhapsody? On what hardware will they run?

Guess 3: You think NCs represent a revolution as big as the Macintosh, and you plan to lead that revolution. You plan to tie NCs to Rhapsody servers, and you have deals with software developers (Adobe, Microsoft and Oracle) to supply application software that will jump-start the whole thing. The current Macintosh is irrelevant to this project, except as a source of funds.

4) What is the economic engine that will drive your vision of the future?

Guess 4: You will milk the current Macintosh for all the profit you can, minimizing expenses in every way possible. You will keep all Mac, Rhapsody and NC technology under tight Apple control, but you will partner with Intel for the hardware of your new systems and with Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle for software. You will pay licensing fees to Adobe for Display Postscript. You will control the middle API/ROM layer and will manufacture new computers in high volumes under the Apple brand. Together with your partners, you expect to generate huge revenues from hardware and software sales and to achieve high profit margins through your management of the businesses and technologies.

5) What will happen to Mac customers and business partners?