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Schiller Says Apple Is the Last PC Maker From the Mac Era, Forgets About HP
An anonymous reader writes "Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, recently claimed that Apple is the only computer company left from the early days of the Mac. Unfortunately for him, HP still exists. "Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they're all gone," Schiller told Macworld in an interview on Apple's Cupertino campus. 'We're the only one left.' I'm sorry Apple, but when exactly did HP declare bankruptcy? We contacted an HP spokesperson for a statement on Apple's ridiculous claim and were pointed to its timeline history page."
Comparing today's HP to the HP of the 80s, I'm inclined to side with Schiller.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
The company that started in the garage in the picture is now called Aligent. HP that is in business now was a spin off that has little to do with the company started by the founders of HP
Who do you think manufactures Apple's computers, if not the likes of Foxconn and Pegatron?
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Michael Dell started assembling and selling PCs from his dorm room in 1984, the same year the first Macintosh was made.
... HP didn't release its first PC until 1980. Apple was releasing computers years earlier. So Apple would have been correct if they said "PCs".
Actually, according to their history page, HP coined the term "Personal Computer" in 1968 for a large programmable desktop calculator (that looks like a prop from the set of Space:1999).
A marketing guy said something untrue? SAY IT ISN'T SO!
I'm guessing the only reason this story is here is so they can rack a couple OMG APPLE IS SO ARROGANT FUCK THEM posts from 7-digit newcomers around here.
God I miss the pre-Dice Slashdot.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I still count IBM. I believe that quite was, "Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they're all gone."
IBM is still around. Maybe they sold their business, but the company is still around and the business they sold to Lenovo is still going strong.
Likewise for HP, Dell, hell even Atari are still around. Sure their businesses have changed, but so did Apple's. Mac has far less mindshare than iPhone and iTunes these days.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
They just split the company yet again, and the electronics test/measurement operations (the descendant of the original HP business) got rebranded as "Keysight Technologies":
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/...
A company called "Hewlett-Packard" still exists, but they sell printers and PCs. Nothing to do with the company that Bill and Dave started in the Palo Alto garage....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I clicked on that timeline link, using my iPad. Thing is, that page doesn't work well with touch devices. Schiller probably did the same thing I did, and naturally came to the conclusion HP's history ended in 1966.
#DeleteChrome
Foxconn
Megatron
Alpha Trion
Pegatron
Computron
#DeleteChrome
It doesn't matter much what he was talking about because it was incorrect.
Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Panasonic were Japanese electronics manufacturers making MSX-based personal computers in 1983 before the Mac was released and they're still manufacturing PCs today.
I can think of a couple of other manufacturers who are still going, and were producing machines at the the time of original Mac. One of these is a major name, another is obscure, even in it's own country. The first is of course Toshiba, who were producing CP/M systems in 1980, if not earlier. The other is the British manufacturer Research Machines, who produce exclusively for the UK educational sector. Their RM 380Z, another CP/M box, appeared in 1977. RM are still producing PCs for education today, but I believe that they will soon be moving out of hardware whilst continuing with their software and support services.
Does that mean Apple is the next to go?
I thought the story was a reasonable one. While I do miss the pre-Dice days, the days I really miss are the pre-Y2K days. Taco commentary, movie reviews, "quickies," Hemos, Cowboy Neal poll options... I just enjoyed the by-the-seat-of-their-pants feel. And that has been gone for quite some time. Certainly before you registered. ;-)
And how is this relevant? BTW did you know that PC's way back in the days of Mac used standard components? It is only Mac that uses stupid custom components giving them some of the worst repair ratings in the industry.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"IBM doesn't make PCs anymore."
They still build computers...workstations, servers, business systems...just like they did before Woz cobbled together some Fairchild opAmps around 1974. Which incidentally was a copy of a device from Popular Electronics.
Oh please no, dont tell me that Packard Hell is still around.
It's been years since I saw one of them and the memories still bring on cold sweats.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
HP doesn't have the tradition of a "Computer Company". They make computer hardware, but that doesn't put them in the same league as Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Intel and Oracle. Same goes for Dell and Lenovo.
Full disclosure, I've purchased 2 HP laptops in the last two years, so I'm not bashing on HP. They made/make the best calculators and they used to make electronic test equipment. Those were rugged (as much as test equipment can be outside Fluke), accurate and high performance. They also used to make the best laser printers you could buy ( at a reasonable cost). Moving into the commodity PC market and selling off their test equipment branch was a huge mistake. They've had some really bad leadership over the years and they seem to keep killing their best products just at the point when it could really make a positive difference for them.
They're not a computer company, they just happen make computer hardware...this month...next month may be something else.
I think you nailed it. 30 years ago HP didn't have a computer line for home users. IBM did, but they don't now. Apple did then, and they still do now. Their claim is really quite defensible. The guy should have said "Of all the companies that were making consumer computers in 1984, we're the only one left that's still doing it." But I think it's not a stretch to interpret his sentence in just this way.
He didn't make a mistake, he knowingly made a false statement in order to posture Apple above other computer makers. It is not possible for anyone that has anything to do with the computer industry in a professional capacity to "forget" about IBM, HP, Dell, Acer, NEC, Sony, Cray, Fujitsu, etc. who all made computers from before or since the Mac to current day.
Sony Viao L-series all-in-one desktops PCs.
http://www.sony.co.uk/product/...
Fujitsu (no longer Fujitsu-Siemens) Esprimo desktop PCs.
http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/prod...
Panasonic tablet-based PCs running Windows 8.1
http://www.panasonic.com/busin...
> True. But Apple doesn't use standard components except the HDD.
They look standard enough on a PCI bus. They just aren't arranged in a terribly standardized (or maintainable) way.
This is why Linux and Windows have no problem running on Macs.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you want to limit it to PCs (which the original quote did not), then you might as well rule out Apple too.
They build (or rather, subcontract offshore companies to build) phones and tablets, neither of which by any stretch could be considered general purpose computers the way PCs could, and an increasingly shrinking line of computing appliances, ditto.
They also build Macs, which
so, in addition to the phones, tablets, and computing appliances (I assume you're referring there to the iPods other than the iPod touch, but they're even more appliance-like than the iOS machines), they do still manufacture a line of personal computers.
IBM don't make PCs any more
That's funny, because I see them selling workstations and tower servers. Those are PCs.
Dell started 8 years after Apple (and after the Mac)
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PC's Limited while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components.
Acer started 13 years after Apple (and after the Mac)
The Micro-Professor MPF-I, introduced in 1981 by Multitech (which, in 1987, changed its name to Acer)
NEC don't make PCs any more
Really?
Sony made their first PC 7 years after Apple (and after the Mac)
Really?
Cray never made PCs
"Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they're all gone"
Fujitsu only started making PCs 14 years after Apple (and after the Mac)
In 1954, Fujitsu manufactured Japan's first computer, the FACOM 100, and in 1961 launched the transistorized FACOM 222.
FM-7
yes and that is the same business that existed from day one just with a different owner - it did not go away.
IBM just announced Lenovo is purchasing the server business, so... that correction is false at least. The Dell one is too, since Dell started in late 1984, nearly a year after the first mac shipped.
The rest check out. The MSX is of particular note, as it's the platform (MSX2) where the Metal Gear videogame franchise started. Unfortunately, most people are more familiar with the later NES port. It was a pretty terrible port with much more primitive graphics and lots of important stuff removed, like, say, the actual metal gear the game is named after.
True. But Apple doesn't use standard components except the HDD. And even they are phased out for custom SSDs. All Macs are designed and engineered by Apple in Cupertino, incl the logic board. Quanta and Foxconn assemble them. They don't create them.
HP PCs on the other hand uses standard components like everyone else.
The only non standard part Apple use is the motherboard, everything else is pretty much standard parts, memory, HDD, CPU's, GPU's etc are all stock standard parts available in whatever flavour machine you want Apple or not.
Perhaps, but what is relevant is that Dell (November 1984) had not been founded when the Mac shipped (January 1984).
The AC I was replying to seemed to suggest that HP didn't count (barely counted), because their touch-PC wasn't "PC Compatible".
Lots of computer manufacturers' offerings from that time period weren't "PC compatible", yet they were still clearly computers.
The actual article said computers, not PC's. That's a much broader standard.
The only non standard part Apple use is the motherboard, everything else is pretty much standard parts, memory, HDD, CPU's, GPU's etc are all stock standard parts available in whatever flavour machine you want Apple or not.
That's not true. They usually use modified versions of standard components. The current MacBook Pro has the RAM and SSD soldered onto the motherboard, and while the CPU is standard it has a custom connector and cooling system that has forced enough physical differences in the chip that it cannot be replaced. Most macs these days don't even have a GPU, they rely on intel's latest integrated ones which are finally pretty decent.
The Mac Pro is the only model Apple sells with fully standard CPU... but the GPU is non-standard, it's made by AMD but is a weird hybrid of two different GPUs that AMD sells, and Apple is the only company who can use it... one of the two GPUs in the mac pro even has a socket on it so you can plug in a bloody PCIe SSD card. On the GPU! They ran out of PCIe lanes on the processor, so the SSD has to share the lane of the second GPU which is actually a sensible choice since it's highly unlikely you will be maxing out the PCIe card (1.5GB/second) at the same time as doing serious computations on the GPU. That definitely is not a standard part.
On iOS apple builds everything themselves, they are famously known to have over 1,000 engineers working on just the CPU for the iPhone. They haven't gone that far with the mac but it's standard procedure to take components from other companies like AMD and Intel and Qualcomm but then modify to suit their own needs.
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PC's Limited while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components.
8 years after Apple started making computers, just like the OP said.
The Micro-Professor MPF-I, introduced in 1981 by Multitech (which, in 1987, changed its name to Acer)
5 years after Apple started making computers.
Really?
7 years after Apple.
Cray never made PCs
In 1954, Fujitsu manufactured Japan's first computer, the FACOM 100, and in 1961 launched the transistorized FACOM 222.
Here's a picture of your FACOM 100, c'mon, check your facts before you do the Wikipedia copy/paste. It's pretty obvious Schiller meant PCs, even the Slashdot title says "PC Maker."
http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/compu...
Pretty sloppy counterargument. Your biggest problem? Apple built their first PC in 1976.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
You're using the date of 1984, which is the Mac. OP clearly was not talking about the Mac intro date, he calls the Mac's release date out as a separate date in several sections.
I assume he meant to limit it to PC makers. IBM obviously made computers way before Apple, still does, and is still around as a company. HP made minis in the '60's.
But, Apple started making PCs in 1976, 4 years before HP according to HPs own timeline referenced in the summary. IBM came out with their PC in 1981.
Other than IBM and HP, what pre-Apple computer makers are still around intact? DEC, Data General, Amdahl, Cray, Control Data, Burroughs, Sperry Univac, NCR, Honeywell, GE, RCA, etc. either don't make computers, or their current corporate existence bears only a tenuous relation to the original (e.g. DEC was bought by Compaq, which was bought by HP, but there's not a bit of DEC left at HP).
The PC contemporaries of Apple - Radio Shack, Commodore, Cromemco, Northstar, IMSAI, Altair, etc. aren't around or aren't making computers.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Apple Computer was rebranded Apple in 2007. It's clearly the same company, and had nothing to do with the launch of the Mac in 1984 - it was rebranding because Apple sells tons of phones and tablets, and not just "computers". And since it's clearly the same company, changing "Apple Computer" to "Apple" doesn't affect whether their claim is correct or not.
To drill into their details:
- "When we started the Mac" was several years before the Mac shipped. Specifically, it was 1978, when the Lisa and Mac both started parallel development as competing teams.
- Clearly when he said "computer" what he was talking about was "personal computer". There are still a few of the mainframe-era companies around and still selling mainframes. But in the early personal computer market, all of Apple's competitors from the early days are out of the business. Remember, Apple's founders left HP to start Apple specifically because HP didn't think personal computers were viable, so I'm pretty sure Apple didn't forget that HP existed. Arguably HP did sell their first personal computer, the incredibly obscure HP-85 starting in 1980 (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/personalsystems/0029/). Long after Apple Computer was selling the Apple ][, and a few years after the Lisa and Mac projects started.
So IMO if you accept that by "computer" he meant "personal computer" and by "when we started the Mac" he meant when they started working on it, not when it shipped, I think his claim is true.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
And this is why Slashdot needs a "Wrong" moderation.
a) The quote was specifically "computers", not "PC's"
b) He mentioned HP....but you conveniently ignored that one.
c) Sony made it's first computer (a PC even) in 1982, before the Mac
d) NEC still makes computers (servers)
e) Acer was making PC's in 1983, before the Mac
f) Fujitsu made computers in 1954, and PC's in 1981, before the Mac
But yeah...you were right about IBM & kinda right about Dell (though it could be argued it was just a rename of his PC's Limited...which started in 1984), so I guess 2 out of 8 is a good day for you....
From the context it's pretty clear he meant "around and making personal computers." Which means this was a statement from marketing that is only untrue if you a) intentionally distort the context, and b) insist on rigorous definition of "personal computer" that includes things like calculators.
Be honest. When's the last time your company's marketing guy was that close to the truth.
OMG! Some VIP gave a false statement on a corporate press event. Is there a front page post on /. every time that happens?
Yes, it should be. So must we tolerate falsehoods now?