Platform Crisis: The Lazy Dinosaur 2

1994: An Unanticipated Crisis

By 1994, Apple had so many product ideas in the fire that it seemed unlikely that the inventive and forward thinking company was just a couple years away from a desperate technology crisis.

Apple was one of few companies doing really interesting stuff; it had just debuted the new Newton handheld computer.

Besides, the new reality seemed to be that software developers simply could not be expected to ship anything on time anymore. Microsoft had repeatedly slipped its own plans year after year after announcing Cairo in 1991.

Microsoft's Cairo was roughly analogous to Apple's Pink: a futuristic visionary plan that explained how the company would soon deliver a competitive operating system that could be compared to 1989's NeXTSTEP.

In May 1994, Microsoft's Jim Allchin announced that Cairo would be pushed off yet another year so the company could finish Windows 95; by the end of the year, Cairo had been pushed off into 1996, and Windows 95’s release was delayed deep into its namesake year.

Meanwhile, Mac magazines were publishing pictures and articles hyping the features promised by Apple’s Copland, which appeared far more likely to ship compared to anything promised by Microsoft.

Copland promised to extend the Mac lead, matching Microsoft’s features and wrapping it all up in a new, nicer looking package.

Given the rapid Mac improvements Apple had delivered from 1985 to 1991, there was no impending fear that Apple would be unable to deliver an immediate successor to System 7.

It had only been three years, and Apple had been issuing a regular set of minor System Software updates and other technology, including QuickTime 2.0, PowerTalk, QuickDraw GX, QuickTime VR, and QuickDraw 3D.

Continues >

This Article

First Page | < Previous | Next >

This Series

Tech: The Rise and Fall of Platforms