The Iconoclast - Send In The Clones (1995)

Apple’s licensing approach (ca. 1994-1997) is a bad idea.

Original text by Steven Levy, Macworld January 1995.

Andy Bechtolscheim quote about SPARC licensing and Macintosh clones: “Sun had a unified business… it wasn’t really selling separate software. … that whole notion of defining success [as] ‘other people adopt your thing’… Apple was criticized for being a closed system, then they licensed SuperMac … to build clones …. and the first thing Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple was he killed all the clones, right? ‘cause if you cannot build a better system yourself, you don’t need the clones for sure, right?” Transcript.

Guerrino de Luca’s time with Apple goes back to at least 1992 (appearance at 1m52s), included a stint at Claris, and ended shortly after Steve Jobs returned in 1997. Guerrino’s last appearance with Apple. Don’t worry; he did fine for himself–he went to Logitech and was its president and CEO until 2008.

Guerrino bookending Apple’s System 7.5 promo video.

Given Apple’s tendency to undergo frequent reorgs throughout the ’90s, Don Strickland did not last as head of licensing operations. Unfortunately Don passed away in 2022 though his website is still up.

Compaq was a much more creative and technically significant company in its early days before it was forced to produce bargain basement PCs. Rod Canion’s excellent and highly entertaining (for nerds) book “Open” recounts the story.

Power Computing only made it halfway to its goal of selling 100,000 Macs in its first year.