Apple Computer Inc has confirmed its intention to license the Macintosh Operating System to third parties. Apple will reportedly collect a licence fee of between $20 and $80 on each machine sold, which is roughly comparable to Microsoft Corp’s levy for Windows. But the company says that technical difficulties prevent it from producing a version of Mac OS which would run on PowerPC Reference Platform-compliant systems. Apple says at least two years’ work would be involved. Instead, Apple has defined its own system, the Macintosh RISC Architecture, which licensees will build to. Macintosh RISC Architecture gives the recipe for building a Macintosh clone. So the industry gets more Macintosh suppliers, but does not necessarily come closer to a machine that can run Mac OS and multiple other operating systems. Just how technically difficult the task would prove is debatable: Glen Miranker, technical director at FirePower Systems Inc believes he could comfortably adapt Mac OS to run on his PowerPc Reference Platform-compliant machines in nine months. Apple is not just intending to license the software. It will also earn money selling hardware to its licensees, anything from Application Specific Integrated Circuits to motherboards to complete machines, according to Don Strickland, the head of Apple’s licensing operation. The initial number of licensees will be kept small, around six, while Apple finds its feet running the unfamilar OEM support operation. Strickland refuses to say explicitly whether there are any customers lined up yet, but his confident assertion that first third-party products will appear in 1995 makes it clear that there are. The customers cannot get Mac clones out any earlier, he says, since there is major work to be done redesigning motherboards for new form-factors and the like. So who are the guilty parties? Apple is tight-lipped, but Strickland says we should expect big-name companies in the US, in Europe and in Asia Pacific. The partners will have been chosen for a combination of their technical expertise and knowledge of either particular geographical or commercial markets.
Target is conservative
Names that keep cropping up in the press are Acer Inc, Compaq Computer Corp, Motorola Inc, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, Vobis Microcomputer AG, Toshiba Ltd, Goldstar Co Ltd and Pioneer Electronic Corp. Strickland says Apple does not intend to restrict licensees to particular markets as previously planned. The only limitation mentioned is that the companies have to specify which language version of the system they want, but multiple languages will be available. Apple has just two stated aims: to compete more effectively in the operating system wars and attract software developers by increasing market share. Its initial target is conservative: an increase in Mac OS’s market share by 25% to 30% over and above Apple-badged hardware. So, if Apple Macintosh has 10% of the personal computer market share today and we assume it will have 12% in two to three years, Mac OS on non-Apple machines should contribute another 3% to 4%, bringing the operating system’s total market share to around 15% to 16%. Strickland believes that it should be enough to get their [developers’] interest; and indeed it may be enough to make the likes of Lotus Development Corp look again. To clear the way for licensing, Apple has spent some of its research and development dollars creating a new logo that will be plastered across future products. It is based upon the old happy-Mac icon, crossed, with a happy user and is in a delicate shade of IBM Corp blue (CI No 2,507).
