Apple Computer Inc could scarcely have been more ill-prepared to meet the deadly challenge from Windows95 if it had tried, and there must be a whole army of grown men that love the Mac reduced to tears by the company’s inability to meet demand for its PowerPC RISC machines because of component shortages. In the latest severe set back for the company, MacWeek and PC Week are reporting that the company has said no to a possible Mac OS licensing deal with Gateway 2000 Inc and has put the pursuit of other licensing deals on hold because of the worldwide component shortages. The Gateway decision is clearly yet another dreadful marketing bloomer by Apple, because the announcement of Gateway as a licensee, even with the rider that the company would be unable to enter the market until sometime next year because of the shortages, would at least have encouraged a few more software developers to write for the Mac OS standard. The shortages are said to be primarily of Peripheral Component Interconnect chips, but also of PowerPC 604s, and even Mac-standard memory chips. MacWeek says that Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA and its UK affiliate Acorn Computer Group Plc, and Goldstar Technology Inc of Seoul, South Korea, have now all finalised their licensing agreements with Apple but won’t announce their deals until Apple resolves its supply problems. The paper quotes analysts saying that Apple’s dependence on custom ASICs has exacerbated the Mac shortage. There is of course anyway an awkward hiatus in the Macintosh market while the world drums its fingers and waits with growing impatience and irritation for the PowerPC Common Hardware Reference Platform to arrive next year. This will ease the problem of parts shortages, because there are far fewer Mac-specific ASICs required with the Platform, although until the next major release of Mac OS comes along, cloners will still need to include the fabled Mac ROMs in their machines. MacWeek hears that both Dell Computer Corp and Compaq Computer Corp are seriously considering building personal computers to the Common Platform standard.
