Written 18 July 1997 in response to Don Crabb’s, “The Wintelintosh Strategy”

I always enjoy your articles, even when they go somewhat against what I think reasonable. Regarding your recent article about “Wintelintosh”, there are some questions and concerns that I don’t think have been addressed regarding your proposed strategy for Apple. Of course, it may be obvious to all you insiders but it’s not to me, an average user.

I agree that there is a certain logic to the madness of betting the farm and risking going down in a blaze of glory. It might even work. So how does Apple building even more hardware (which differs from their own) help their cause? In your article you point out that a low price “isn’t enough” and that higher-value systems “[aren’t] enough” but then you seem to suggest that building higher-value Intel-based systems would be effective. Huh? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood? HP and IBM arguable build higher quality Intel-based systems, so where does the “value-added” part come in and how has it helped HP or IBM?

What does make sense, to me anyway, is that if Apple were to build Intel-based boxes it would have to ship them with Rhapsody. Which means that Rhapsody must be finished. But if Rhapsody is complete, why bother building Intel boxes at all? Just promote Rhapsody—maybe give it away to the first million people or something (like Be is doing with the BeOS).

And you’re right about Apple having to convince customers that it wasn’t jumping off it’s own ship by building Intel-based systems. The Macintosh community has been fairly patient with Apple’s blunders but I think that building off the competition’s processors would be a gunshot in their own foot. Imagine the perceived message received by the masses, most of whom are totally ignorant about computer issues! Apple already builds peripherals for PCs—why not build on that front instead of taking on the masses of PC-clone makers?

Finally, why would the MIS people out there change their feeling about Apple’s Macintosh by having Apple-branded Intel machines? IBM makes both Unix machines and PC-clones, yet you don’t see customers jumping to the RS/6000 line from their Aptivas. IBM has been relinquished to just another PC-clone maker and many IS/IT people continue their crusade to junk Unix-based systems in favor of Intel-based NT systems. Why do you think Apple can pull it off, regardless of how desperate they may be?

In short, “yes, yes, yes!” to Rhapsody on PCs, but “no, no, no!” to the idea of Apple building Intel boxes. But I still have many questions about your suggested strategy. Maybe you can set me straight in a future article or letter. Thanks for your time and the excellent articles!

The average Mac user,

Matt Warner

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