Apple's reluctance to renew its vows with Macintosh clone makers isn't just pissing off the cloners. Many in the great flock of Apple-obsessed are up in arms, too.
Mac Central, an ad-supported Web pub which posts fresh Mac news and reviews seven days a week from its Halifax, Nova Scotia, offices, has received more than 5,000 responses to its Clone Mandate. And both MacOS Mania, run by a Northern California high school student, and the UK's Always Apple are eager for the clone makers to be given some clout and suggest that readers place endorsement badges like "Fight Back for Mac Clones!" or "Save the Clones" on their Web sites.
Apple says it is in the midst of negotiating new licensing agreements with its clone makers such as Motorola, Power Computing, and Umax. But the clone makers are quick to point out that it sounds more like Apple is backpedaling on existing agreements than trying to write new ones.
"Is Apple seriously entertaining the reversal of its long-term cloning policy?" asked Mike Rosenfelt, marketing director at Power Computing, as he considered a controversial letter from Apple to clone makers apparently sent Friday. The "Solomon letter," purportedly written by Doug Solomon, Apple's vice president of business development, stated that Apple will not carry out its certification of the Common Hardware Reference Platform, required for cloners to sell their next generation machines, until further notice.
Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton said the letter issue had been blown out of proportion since no one will sell CHRP machines without the Mac OS8, and that licensing agreements are currently under negotiation for the new operating system. She did, however, recognize that Apple is interested in rewriting the terms.
"We're approaching our licensees with a different agreement for the Mac OS 8," Cotton said, although she would provide no details of the negotiations. The company has lost some of its marketshare to clone makers and, with licensing agreements apparently stalled, the Mac world has been rife with speculation that Apple will stop licensing all together or find some way to limit licensees in its prime markets like education.
As the hubbub surrounding the unresolved clone licensing continues, however, Apple stands to lose more than a share of its business to clone makers. Its customers and Mac fans are growing tired of Apple's failure to stand by its licensees.
"It's ridiculous," said Pieter Hartsook, a longtime Mac analyst and former Apple exec, as he pondered the drawn-out negotiations and Apple's failure to give the clone makers a firm foundation on which to build their customers' faith. "It's a very unprofessional way to do business.... Who is going to trust them any more?"
James Staten, an analyst at Dataquest, agreed that if Apple abandons its clones "they will lose a lot of customer equity." Dataquest has estimated that, were it to stop licensing clone makers all together, Apple would pick up 50 to 60 percent of the sales cloners currently control. But even that amounts to little. Apple, in the second quarter of this year, had 4.5 percent of the PC market, while its cloners had just over 1 percent.
While Apple and the clone makers fight for their shares of the PC pie, however, it is Mac users who stand to lose. "It's virtually impossible to get any venture capital for a Mac-only product," said Stan Flack, president and publisher of Mac Central, explaining the reasoning behind his site's clone-supporting call to arms. "It all rests on the heels of the user base.... I think it's fundamental and essential that in order for the Mac to succeed we need to have a much larger market," Flack said.
Through the Clone Mandate, Flack is collecting email to send to executives at Apple and the clone makers, in an attempt to convince the higher-ups that the users are anxious for resolution. "It's really irrelevant whose fault it is," said Flack, a former newspaperman who generally holds to a more neutral course than his fiery Mandate rant, explaining that the only really important thing is the preservation of the platform.
