No PC/Microsoft Hegemony

[Mark-ITSOT]

Back in the 80s and 90s, though it may be hard for some of you youngsters to believe, the choice of home computing platforms wasn't just between Apples and A. N. Other PC Clone. Companies such as Commodore and Atari (in the USA) and Acorn and Sinclair (in the UK), among others also produced popular machines.

Of these alternatives the best, technically speaking at least, were probably the Commodore Amiga series (about 6 million sold) and Acorn's A(rchimedes) series (and later their RISC PC). Both systems had features that were revolutionary for the time. Superb graphics rendering in the case of the Amiga So superb, in fact, that Amigas were used in the production of the special fx for B5), and the introduction of the RISC based 32 bit ARM chip: arguably a much more energy efficient, powerful and faster processor than the ubiquitous Motorola 68000 to be found in many other (non PC) home computers. On top of this both systems boasted Operating Systems that made Mac's System/OS N and MS DOS/Windows look second rate.

What eventually brought both Commodore and Acorn down wasn't bad products, or inferior software, but the kind of truely bizarre management decisions that seemed to be endemic in the high tech sector in the 90s. Of course, Apple wasn't immune from this (the three companies share the distinction of being both producers of hardware and software) and could well be just a page in the history of computing itself if not for (a) MS buying $50,000,000 worth of Apple shares and making its software available for the platform (MS Office actually began life as a Mac app) and (b) the iPod.

So. What would it take to have Acorn and Commodore still active as players in the home and business computer market of the 00s?

 

[Nicole]

Commodore needs to learn the meaning of advertising, from what I've heard they were quite mismanaged as well... (What was the joke? "Commodore bought KFC, now it's called 'warm dead bird'"?) Commodore was burning money fast... indeed, the last plans for the next-generation Amiga (running the HP PA-RISC processor) in the last days even ditched Amiga OS in favor of Windows NT, if I recall correctly. (Or at least, Windows NT would be on the first released devices, Amiga OS would come later bringing backwards compatibility) I don't know, everything I read about Commodore seems to imply that while the technology was there, (except for the A600, that was stupid) the money wasn't.

There was, I believe, a proposal that Commodore's profitable United Kingdom subsidiary, which survived the bankruptcy of Commodore International, (unsure on the details) could have bought out the parent company, (after having it reorganized in bankruptcy) however, they were outbid by Escom. (the details confuse me) This would create a new Commodore that may be based on the wrong side of the Atlantic, I think...

And that brings us to Britain, where Acorn would be hanging out... unfortunately I know very little about them. The ARM is definitely a very advanced chip, one should be able to do something with it.

And an extra- I've heard it argued the Microsoft investment in Apple is not as important as some think, and the company was not that close to the brink- it still had over a billion dollars in cash. However, I do think one has to say that having Microsoft Office on the Macintosh platform was a huge factor for Apple's continued survival...

 

[tchizek]

So. What would it take to have Acorn and Commodore still active as players in the home and business computer market of the 00s?

Third party software. Frankly that is what made DOS/Windows the powerhouse it is, The fact that the development tools were cheap (relative to what a mini-computer/mainframe development environment was), open (relative to Acorn and Commodore), and relatively good (I tried to get development tools for Commodore and the only ones that I could get was BASIC or Assembly, at the time when you could get professional level C/Pascal compilers for Windows).

That was the time period when MS was selling its tools at less than cost, and supporting them.

What the computer vendors needed was a software arm, look at the difference. MS no computer hardware, lots of software tools that they push on developers - MS Developers network was first introduced in 1993 time frame and it was like crack - here are all of the tools we produce for 1 (relatively) low price, all you have to do is develop software for the Windows Platform and we will give you every tool/application we make.

Acorn and Commodore needed someone to write the tools for them - having hardware was not enough. Look at the PC manufacturers that failed during that same time! The market for hardware was brutal.

Now if Acorn or Commodore had convinced someone to do an early native Unix port onto their hardware then maybe - just maybe they could have survived. But it would have had to have been a port that supported the graphics because that was what the market for their hardware was driven by.

Also as others have pointed out - hit their management with a clue stick!

 

[Nicole]

Now if Acorn or Commodore had convinced someone to do an early native Unix port onto their hardware then maybe - just maybe they could have survived. But it would have had to have been a port that supported the graphics because that was what the market for their hardware was driven by.

Well, there was this on the Amiga front, but as the article implies, it wasn't exactly done well.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

The problem for Acorn is that once they'd got dislodged from the lucrative education supply market they found it very hard to get a foothold in the home market. A struggle not helped by the fact that their computers were relatively expensive (think Apple rather than PC). The company was also split up (with the ARM section becoming ARM Ltd and the rest becoming Element 14). Also... They decided to get into building networked computers and set top boxes. Neither of which was exactly a great success for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Network_Computer

Set-Top boxes

In 1994, a subsidiary of Acorn, Online Media, was founded. Online Media aimed to exploit the projected video-on-demand (VOD) boom, an interactive television system which would allow users to select and watch video content over a network. In September 1994 the Cambridge Trial of video-on-demand services was set up by Online Media, Anglia Television, Cambridge Cable (now part of Virgin Media) and Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd (ATML)[7] – the trial involved creating a wide area ATM network linking TV-company to subscribers' homes and delivering services such as home shopping, online education, software downloaded on-demand and the World Wide Web. The wide area network used a combination of fibre and coaxial cable, and the switches were housed in the roadside cabinets of Cambridge Cable's existing network.[8] Olivetti Research Laboratory developed the technology used by the trial. An ICL video server provided the service via ATM switches manufactured by ATML, another company set up by Hauser and Hopper. The trial commenced at a speed of 2 Mbit/s to the home, subsequently increased to 25 Mbit/s.[9]
Subscribers used Acorn Online Media set-top boxes. For the first six months the trial involved 10 VOD terminals;[9] the second phase was expanded to cover 100 homes and 8 schools with a further 150 terminals in test labs. A number of other organisations gradually joined in, including the National Westminster Bank, the BBC, the Post Office, Tesco and the local education authority.
BBC Education tested delivery of radio-on-demand programmes to primary schools, and a new educational service, Education Online, was established to deliver material such as Open University television programmes and educational software. Netherhall secondary school was provided with an inexpensive video server and operated as a provider of Trial services, with Anglia Polytechnic University taking up a similar role some time later.[8] It was hoped that Online Media could be floated as a separate company, but the predicted video-on-demand boom never really materialised.

 

[the_lyniezian]

I was thinking of the interactive TV and "network computers" just before that last post. I've heard about the third-party software business as wel from the magazines I got as a kid in the mid-90s. I suppose the education market was their "niche", but I wonder if Acorn couldn't have branched out somewhat? (Mind you, they always said they didn't want to go head-to-head with the big players.)

I wonder what happened to TAOS? It was being touted as the Next Big Thing in the Acorn field aorund '95, possibly as some sort of OS to run paralel processors or suchlike. Must have fallen by the wayside.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

Third party software. Frankly that is what made DOS/Windows the powerhouse it is, The fact that the development tools were cheap (relative to what a mini-computer/mainframe development environment was), open (relative to Acorn and Commodore), and relatively good (I tried to get development tools for Commodore and the only ones that I could get was BASIC or Assembly, at the time when you could get professional level C/Pascal compilers for Windows).

That was the time period when MS was selling its tools at less than cost, and supporting them.

What the computer vendors needed was a software arm, look at the difference. MS no computer hardware, lots of software tools that they push on developers - MS Developers network was first introduced in 1993 time frame and it was like crack - here are all of the tools we produce for 1 (relatively) low price, all you have to do is develop software for the Windows Platform and we will give you every tool/application we make.

Acorn and Commodore needed someone to write the tools for them - having hardware was not enough. Look at the PC manufacturers that failed during that same time! The market for hardware was brutal.

Now if Acorn or Commodore had convinced someone to do an early native Unix port onto their hardware then maybe - just maybe they could have survived. But it would have had to have been a port that supported the graphics because that was what the market for their hardware was driven by.

Also as others have pointed out - hit their management with a clue stick!

The A series had some excellent 3rd party software written for it. Two examples of which: Sibellius and Artworks (as Xara) are still going strong today.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

I was thinking of the interactive TV and "network computers" just before that last post. I've heard about the third-party software business as wel from the magazines I got as a kid in the mid-90s. I suppose the education market was their "niche", but I wonder if Acorn couldn't have branched out somewhat? (Mind you, they always said they didn't want to go head-to-head with the big players.).

Which is a bizarre thing to say, considering that, at the time, they were one of the big players (BBC micro, anyone? )

 

[the_lyniezian]

Which is a bizarre thing to say, considering that, at the time, they were one of the big players (BBC micro, anyone? )

Early on in the microcomputer market, and I think businesses did use them too. Whether this was just in the UK and the few other nations where Acorn operated (eventually including Germany, Australia and NZ) I don't know. Unfortunately, Americans (and to some extent Japanese) tend to dominate everything (or, in the past, used to think they do- now they really do).

 

[Electric Monk]

The easiest way to save Commodore would be to give it better management, but (like Apple) that wouldn't really stave off Microsoft Windows. Might save the company—especially if they merged with someone and/or put out a profitable video game console—but it wouldn't result in the ecosystem you want.

What that requires is fairly simple: IBM has competent contract people and MS-DOS is restricted to IBM computers. That means the market remains fragmented until the companies able to develop GUIs and keep developing them (Apple, Commodore, possibly a few others) get a foothold and the market consolidates around 3-5 platforms—probably MacOS, Amiga, Windows, maybe NeXTSTEP, maybe Sun gets into the consumer side of things, maybe one of the Japanese companies takes off (FM-Towns, or whatever).

 

[SunilTanna]

The graphic advantage of Amiga over IBM was big when it was released, as IBM PC's had EGA and Macs were mono -- but declined rapidly over time. It doesn't look so good in comparison when IBM's got VGAs and SVGAs.

The other thing is the 68k processors, nice as they were, just go left behind. There's a reason why Apple switched to PowerPC. There was an article in Retro gamer recently with Shiraz Shivji (Atari ST designer), in which he made basically the same point - he said IIRC that by 1990 it was obvious that the 68k machines had lost the processor race.

As far as Acorn is concerned, great as they were, I just don't see them having the resources, especially not since most of their customers were UK education, to develop hardware, CPUs and operating systems, all by themselves. Get left behind was almost inevitable.

 

[Nicole]

The graphic advantage of Amiga over IBM was big when it was released, as IBM PC's had EGA and Macs were mono -- but declined rapidly over time. It doesn't look so good in comparison when IBM's got VGAs and SVGAs.

The other thing is the 68k processors, nice as they were, just go left behind. There's a reason why Apple switched to PowerPC. There was an article in Retro gamer recently with Shiraz Shivji (Atari ST designer), in which he made basically the same point - he said IIRC that by 1990 it was obvious that the 68k machines had lost the processor race.

Well as noted, Commodore had plans to switch to Hewlett-Packard's 64-bit PA-RISC... I think the first machines were to come out in 1995, which isn't that much behind Apple's Power Macintosh machines- Commodore also had plans to use it in the video game market (the CD32 had been profitable in the UK), if they could maintain a foothold in video games it could help to keep them alive. (Look at what the music industry has done for Apple) Of course, the problem is getting Commodore to the point where they can survive that long...

 

[Mark E.]

The issue was in the market penetration years of 1990-1994. The major office and graphic software components had settled into two camps: DOS/Windows and Macintosh. The 68k processor was losing the speed race, but most Intel computers were running Lotus 123 and WordPerfect directly from DOS, while the Macs were constrained to Word/Excel on the slower graphic interface system. The typical 386 user lamented over the introduction of Windows, since DOS was faster.

Now, from 1992-1994, Motorola, IBM and Apple all collaborated on the development of the RISC (PowerPC) chip. When released in 1994, this development could have crashed the Intel-compatible stronghold, but it did not catch on. The IBM machines did not sell well. The Macs were successful but overpriced. Motorola had regained its speed advantage and held on until 2005. But by then, the PowerPC market shrank to the point that Motorola could no longer support a race with Intel, so Apple switched processors.

 

[tchizek]

The A series had some excellent 3rd party software written for it. Two examples of which: Sibellius and Artworks (as Xara) are still going strong today.

The key-word in the above statement is "some", while both of these machines had some third party software the MS world had lots of third party software.

While not all of it was great or even good there was enough of it that was usable that users could get what they wanted and developers had a large enough market to sell into.

I think that everyone is missing a major point to how to make Commodore and Acorn survive - have them NOT try to be both hardware and software companies. The successfully players in the computer market played either hardware or software. With the possible exception of Apple, and it could be argued that the only reason Apple survived is their niche with artistic software - which again they had third parties write!

So, if you want non-IBM clone hardware to prevail without a POD back in 1980 when IBM gave the farm away to MS (which would butterfly the heck out of the TL). You need somebody at one of these two companies to see that trying to do both hardware and software was a loosing proposition and either split the companies in half or convince someone else to write SW for their platform.

 

[Electric Monk]

I think that everyone is missing a major point to how to make Commodore and Acorn survive - have them NOT try to be both hardware and software companies. The successfully players in the computer market played either hardware or software. With the possible exception of Apple, and it could be argued that the only reason Apple survived is their niche with artistic software - which again they had third parties write!

So, if you want non-IBM clone hardware to prevail without a POD back in 1980 when IBM gave the farm away to MS (which would butterfly the heck out of the TL). You need somebody at one of these two companies to see that trying to do both hardware and software was a loosing proposition and either split the companies in half or convince someone else to write SW for their platform.

Nah. Microsoft is the aberration. The successful software platforms are those that are owned by a single company: all the consoles, iPod, iPhone, Palm, RIM, etc…. Windows is the only major software release that runs on everything and is successful. And aside from a couple years in the late '90s it's always been inferior to Apple and has always been inferior to the brief competing consumer-ish OS platforms (BeOS, NeXTSTEP, Amiga, etc…)

You can watch Windows Mobile and Google Android fail horribly in the marketplace (along with Plays for Sure) for examples of what happens outside the unique circumstances surrounding Windows.

Of course third parties are important, but coupling software OS to hardware is a proven and successful business model. In the case of Windows, there Can Only Be One. It simply doesn't work as a business model for widespread clones.

That said, limiting cloning would probably work but probably not beyond three or four companies and you'd need (unlike Apple's clones, IOTL) the OS developing company to get something more out of the deal than license fees. Perhaps a CPU, for instance (Apple letting Motorola and IBM make clones in the early '90s would have made sense).


What would help is earlier cross-platform development (i.e. Microsoft Office). Get Office plus a couple other big programs on all the major platforms (Openstep is an intriguing way to do it) in the early '90s and that levels the playing field. But, again, that would require Windows to be non-dominant at no more than 40-50% market share.

 

[Nicole]

Nah. Microsoft is the aberration. The successful software platforms are those that are owned by a single company: all the consoles, iPod, iPhone, Palm, RIM, etc…. Windows is the only major software release that runs on everything and is successful. And aside from a couple years in the late '90s it's always been inferior to Apple and has always been inferior to the brief competing consumer-ish OS platforms (BeOS, NeXTSTEP, Amiga, etc…)

Palm is actually a really good example here- the company split into hardware and software sides, and er, it didn't exactly work out and may end up killing the company, if the Pre- which is being done on a "control hardware and software" model- doesn't save the company... (And PalmSource, the software-only company, wasn't exactly successful either, it never produced a viable new version of Palm OS on its own) Another example is Apple's brief foray into clones...

I don't know, I'd prefer a POD post-1989 (so I can live in this world, haha), but at that point killing Microsoft seems difficult- maybe a third company could survive on the skin of its teeth but Windows is still going to have a huge market share. (And note that Commodore was going to push Windows NT on at least some of its "Hombre" chipset machines, so even more for Microsoft)

 

[tchizek]

Nah. Microsoft is the aberration. The successful software platforms are those that are owned by a single company: all the consoles, iPod, iPhone, Palm, RIM, etc…. Windows is the only major software release that runs on everything and is successful. And aside from a couple years in the late '90s it's always been inferior to Apple and has always been inferior to the brief competing consumer-ish OS platforms (BeOS, NeXTSTEP, Amiga, etc…)

Except that the whole point to MS is a lowest common denominator OS/tool set that crosses many manufacturers hardware platforms. It could really be argued that the POD that would kill MS is IBM not going with off the shelf hardware for the original PC. The difference with all of the companies you list above is that the hardware is proprietary.

So maybe splitting hardware from software only works if the hardware is non-proprietary and the software has a standard set of development tools.

But having a bunch of different hardware/OS combinations is not the answer. I lived through trying to be a software developer pre-MSDOS and it was a major pain in the ass to write an application that would port to different hardware/OS combinations.

As bad as MS is sometimes the alternative was worse, both the software and the hardware was more expensive - in both real and inflation $$, the software was horrible, the pace of development was glacial.

I see two possible solutions that would keep Commodore and/or Acorn as viable companies (Neither one of which breaks the MS stranglehold).

1) Give in and produce MS compatible hardware .
2) Raise their prices and compete with Apple and/or Sun Workstations rather than low end PCs.

Or a solution that butterflys away the whole PC market - IBM goes with it's traditional proprietary hardware/software combination for its "PC". At that point everything changes, no MS, no cheap PC's, probably no Internet as we know it. Low end computers are broken between Business computers that go for 10-20K for a desktop and home computers that are games only in the 1-3K price range. The market for memory and CPU's never took off because there was not the huge market - likely we are still in the 16bit world except for possible pure game machines.

Remember the existence of the PC and the huge market for the components was a major part of what drove, CPU, "glue chipset" and Memory prices down get rid of that market and you then have slower progress in all of the computerized things that make our world different than the 1970's...

 

[Orville_third]

One wonders what would happen if the BBC put more of their resources into supporting the BBC Micro.

 

[tchizek]

One wonders what would happen if the BBC put more of their resources into supporting the BBC Micro.

Was that the machine marketed in the US as the Sinclair 80? If so not much - otherwise I am not familiar with the machine.