(2 of 2)
But prices for Apple's computers were high compared with the more competitive IBM-clone market, and the Mac found itself increasingly limited to the niches it now tenuously occupies: schools and desktop publishing. The rank-and-file computer buyer was less interested in exquisite engineering than in sticker price. Apple's share has dropped from about 15% of the personal computer market to 8%.
Helping to push it down is Microsoft's operating system, Windows 95. While Apple fans have been deriding Windows 95 as the technological equivalent of Apple's 1989 operating system, the criticism sounds shriller and shriller. That is because the vast majority of software developers write programs for the Windows market first. Mac versions come later, if at all. "The problem is, you walk into a store with someone and try to convince them to buy a Mac, and there's not enough compelling software to make you want to say, 'Boy, I'm sure glad I have a Mac and not a Windows 95 machine,' " says David Coursey, the editor of PC Letter, an industry publication.
While takeover attempts and mergers have been rumored, most experts still assert that Apple's prospects for survival are good. Its core business, truly excellent software that makes computers easy to use, has hooked some 20 million die-hard customers. "There are times when you look at Apple and you see the Wang of the future: the once highflyer that became irrelevant to what's going on," says Coursey. But, he adds, "yes, the Mac still works better. Yes, it has a better operating system. And yes, Apple is headed in a good direction."
And what will Spindler's own direction be? Despite rumors that his job may be in jeopardy, A.C. Markkula Jr., the chairman of Apple's board of directors, told the Wall Street Journal late last week that there are no plans for any management changes and pronounced Spindler "a very brilliant man." Of course, that's what they said about Sculley, after he stepped down.
--Reported by David S. Jackson/San Francisco and Barbara Rudolph/New York