Posted Wednesday, April 23, 1997

After reading a couple of the latest pieces on the Ellison/Apple scenario, including what he "might" do with Apple, I find that I am really bummed. While it's all speculation at the moment, the recent tone is that of turning Apple into an NC-maker, while retaining the Macintosh brand name due to its popularity and recognizability.

I just logged on to my ISP to check my mail. As the machine was connecting, I thought how weird it would be if that was how I would get any "work" (read "play") done in the future. I'd have no disk drive and no programs, no Frontier to customize or automate my Mac, build and manage websites, or whatever else, and I'd be at "their" mercy, so to speak. It's bad enough having to depend on the vagaries of my ISP on a given day. But who decides what programs will run on the NC server? How secure/private is my stuff on their server? How do I print? If Ellison's idea of the future is only a fat server running some variation of Office 97, and that's the only choice, then what? How is this any better than Redmond's wish to control 85% of everything. What about creativity and imagination and stuff like that? The thin client/fat server doesn't sound like a great creative medium (utilitarian, perhaps). Let there be both, then.

PCs or workstations aren't going to go away real soon, so the above may sound naive. In reality, if Ellison buys Apple, maybe they will still make "real" Macintoshes, but that wasn't mentioned as a future possibility. Maybe the clone makers will still make Mac clones. What about the OS? I am hopeful from other things I've been reading the last few months that somehow the MacOS will remain as an entity (fixed and improved upon, as well) even if it's no longer part of Apple, and that people will continue to develop cool software for it.