Apple Clones - Another Crazy Conspiracy Theory
Looking wayyyy back on the whole Apple clone issue, here is an interesting insider piece from a UMAX employee – Another Crazy Conspiracy Theory
May 17, 2004—Santa Clara, CA
In my previous rambling, I promised more later. It’s later, so here’s the more.
In general, I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories. Most just seem paranoid and give “them” a whole lot more credit for stealth, ingenuity, deviousness, and organization then they really deserve. And of course, anyone who disagrees with the conspiracy theorist can be accused of either being too blind to see “the obvious” or is “in on it” themselves. The theory which follows may be just as nuts.
A lot was said when the era of mac os clones came to an end in the summer of 1998—most of it very loudly and publically. Some of it was said on the stage of MacWorld Expo, some of it in the Mac press, and some of it less openly. Apple had any number of reasons for wanting cloning to die: the clone makers were just stealing Apple sales rather than growing the platform (~95% true), the clone business plan wasn’t well thought out in the first place (50% true), the Mac market wasn’t strong enough to support clones (0% true)...
In a brief interview on the expo floor at Macworld SF in January ‘98, Bruce Berkoff reversed a question from KTVU-2’s Van Amberg about what the cloners were doing for Apple. (Bruce is a master at this, and I respect his power over language and semantics for it.) Bruce responded that the best thing Apple could do for the cloners would be to grow its platform and expand into new businesses where Macs had not previously been considered. That was precisely what Apple expected the cloners to do, and this, of course, was not lost on Bruce. It was the best possible way of stating that Apple’s fight was Umax’s fight, and they had their best chance of winning by sticking together. it didn’t stave off the bitter end, but it did give those of us in the Umax booth the energy to keep the enthusiasm and optimism up for one last appearance.(...)