by Laser Quasar Absolutely

(So what did you think -- that it's my real name?)

I THINK IT WAS PROF. PARKINSON -- THE CHAP WHO enunciated Parkinson's Law, viz., "Work expands to fill the time available" (tell me about it!) -- who also first said "An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance".

There's a great deal of truth to it. How do you think Microsoft became dominant in the business world? Riding the coat-tails of IBM's image, of course! 

Everyone imagined, back in the early eighties, that the folks at Big Blue-- at that time the world's biggest computer company by far -- must know what they're doing. Forget that the Mac could run rings round the IBM PC. Businessmen and managers didn't know that. Few people except geeks and nerds did, and they didn't control the purse strings.

And everyone else thought that whatever big business bought must be the best, and so they too bought PCs. Image, not performance, sold PCs to the masses by the million, and made Bill Gates rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Apple has, indeed, also been playing the same game recently. What really sells the iMac? That it's fast, or that it's cool? Do I really need to say?

What I do say is, let's capitalise on this trend. One of the coolest computers of all time was the 20th Anniversary Mac. Forget that it was no faster than a Performa 6500. It was so cool, it couldn't fail to make you drool.

But Apple made only a few of those -- and at first priced them way beyond anyone's budget. That was a mistake. (Later they came down in price, to be sure, and all of them were snapped up, but the mistake had been made.)

What Apple needs, in order to make serious inroads into the Wintel market, is many more of such "absolutely must-have" machines. They needn't be any different inside from the run-of-the-mill ones -- any more than the new Beetle is from the VW Golf -- but cool is where its at, now. (After all, average buyers think there's little difference between Windows and the MacOS, so when they're out shopping for a new computer they won't judge the box by what's inside, even though both you and I know different.)

Apple needs to put out a machine every now and then which positively defines drop-dead cool. Award-winning. Unconditionally can't-do-without. One that blows you away like a B-2 bomber just to look at it. In the same class as a McLaren F1, an MV Agusta F4, a Movado museum watch, a Venus de Milo. Something which so wows the crowd that the other booths at Comdex are left empty. Not just a measly ounce of image, but a bloody pound of the stuff.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's easy, but then again it's not impossible either. All that needs to be done is to contract some of the best designers in the world to design the outsides of future Macs, and then get the f#*% out of their way. Enzo Ferrari always got Pininfarina to do his coachwork, and who can say he didn't make an impact? The Pope, likewise, insisted that Michelangelo do the Sistine Chapel and his soldiers' uniforms, and those too have wowed the crowd ever since the sixteenth century. 

Michelangelo is not around for hire today, so MikeyMacs may be out of the question (but if they had been available, who can doubt that they'd have sold like hot cakes?) But there are other great designers, right? Even if they were paid in the millions, there would be so many stunning Macs sold that the portion of the price per unit dedicated to great design would be next to negligible.

Heck, if Apple did that, people might buy Macs just to keep them for fifty years or more, and watch them rise in value to tens or even hundreds of times what they originally cost -- like Bugatti two-seater roadsters and Holland & Holland double-barrelled hunting rifles.

And think of it this way. Bill Gates, for all his billions, can't profit from this kind of cool, because he doesn't make the hardware! Windows will always be associated with dreary boring beige boxes, simply because they're made by lots and lots of competing companies, many of whom are desperately looking for every possible way to cut corners. If the MacOS were always associated with the coolest computers around, and especially if they -- unlike Ferrari F50'sand Bimota Tesi's,which are only for the filthy rich -- were priced at no more than their counterparts in the Wintel world, which ones would your in-laws buy?

... (not his real name -- but you figured that out already, right?) ... calls himself a "Thinker", especially about the future. He thinks that's where he'll be spending the rest of his life (but who's he kidding, eh?  Doesn't he realize it's always going to be now?)

Most people say to him "You can't be serious" -- and they're right, he can't. (But then, who can be serious about the future, seeing as how anything can happen in it, and usually does ... er, will?)

His best book -- indeed his only book -- is entitled The Seventh Generation, and its shareware version in Adobe Acrobatformat is available for download from his alter-ego's web site (under construction right now) at http://cpu2308.adsl.bellglobal.com. It's all about the next 150 years or so, and where technology might take us in that amount of time. (Just $5.00 -- cheap! And well worth it, though he says so himself). Check it out.

And send him e-mail: he loves feedback!  

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