Slashdot Mirror


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."

24 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. !HP by iroll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:!HP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Doing the same comparison on Apple yields the same results.

      Woz must be turning in his grave.

    2. Re:!HP by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you thinking of Apple of the 70s? Woz was basically out by 1981.

      Apple today is very much like Apple of the early Mac years: building computers that are small, easy, and appliance-like.

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    3. Re:!HP by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Today's Apple is also nothing like the Apple of 80's. It is arguably undergone even more drastic changes than HP.

    4. Re:!HP by Patch86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Assuming you don't count the whole messy business with NeXt- i.e., Jobs leaving, founding a competing company, Apple heading to the point of bankruptcy, buying NeXt in a sort of reverse takeover in which the NeXt board (i.e. Jobs) takes control of the company, replacing their entire product line (Mac OS) with NeXt products. And then, of course, switching their primary business model to selling audio players and phones, with their major revenue source being a content distribution platform.

      So yeah, definitely exactly the same company as existed in 1986.

      I still take your point, but it's disingenuous to pretend that Apple hasn't been through the corporate meat grinder just as much as any other long-lived company.

  2. He is probably correct by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  3. Re:still exist, but... by timmyf2371 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  4. Marketing guy says something untrue? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Marketing guy says something untrue? by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Huh Slashdot was better back then? Really? Colour me pink!

      Some say it was better when it waspink. With ponies.

  5. Re:And IBM by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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"
  6. It USED to be Agilent... by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
    1. Re:It USED to be Agilent... by egcagrac0 · · Score: 4, Funny

      A company called "Hewlett-Packard" still exists, but they sell printers and PCs.

      Don't forget ink. They make a lot of money selling ink.

  7. Think I found the source of confusion by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
  8. Re:According to the history page... by nojayuk · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  9. A couple of others, one well known, one not so. by shippo · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:And Dell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, but he shut it down and gave the money back to the shareholders.

  11. who's next? by beefoot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does that mean Apple is the next to go?

  12. Hey, Johnny-come-lately... by Slartibartfast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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. ;-)

  13. Re:Oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  14. Re:Only Toshiba by nojayuk · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...

  15. Re:Oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  16. Re:Oh by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  17. Re: still exist, but... by abhi_beckert · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  18. Re:Oh by Zalbik · · Score: 4, Informative

    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....