Despite Acorn Computer Group Plc’s denial that it is in the throes of licensing Mac OS, Apple Computer Inc certainly appears to have half a dozen licensees in the wings. Apple said it would maintain a relaxed attitude to licensing the Mac OS until the Common Hardware Reference Platform, now called the Hardware Reference Platform (CI No 2,675), is launched in the autumn. Then it will become altogether more aggressive about get more people to build Mac clones. Part of the company’s reticence about its new relationships is the fact that the licensing of Mac OS has meant cultural changes for Apple. For 10 years the company’s software group had only a single customer, which was Apple’s hardware group, and was, therefore, a pretty efficient operation. Now it has to get used to other customers and on a practical level, it has meant the rewriting of thousands of agreements. All this has necessitated an expansion of Apple’s licensing department to 50 from one. It reports that from 1993 to 1994 sales of applications for Mac OS grew 21%, and were worth $1,060m. And Apple wants to grow itself by 35% to 40% over the next few years; these goals relate to specific market segments such as education and consumer, where it wants to be the number one supplier.
