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Jumping Ship Too Late (5/23/99)
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Want proof that Apple still has a ways to go before they're out of the woods? We admit, it can be hard to believe, given how much better things are now than they were a few years ago, but there's definitely still room for improvement. For one thing, even though lots of developers who left the Mac platform behind are now starting to come back because of the iMac's popularity, occasionally we still see companies leaving the party, just when things are getting good. Case in point: Hewlett-Packard. According to a MacWEEK article, HP has officially confirmed that it has "ended development in the Mac scanner market."
What this means is that HP's current generation of ScanJet scanners-- which are incompatible with the latest Power Macs-- will stay that way. Furthermore, don't expect any more Mac-compatible scanners from now on, unless they reverse their official decision; their web site states quite clearly that their "solution" (!) to the issue of Mac support is that their scanner division "has moved out of the Macintosh environment," a decision that was "based solely on market needs and revenue" because "the current Macintosh market is relatively small" compared to the Wintel juggernaut. Mmm, some solution. Thanks for nothing.
What's particularly interesting about this "solution" is that, with the iMac's terrific sales performance and Apple's year-over-year unit growth outpacing the industry as a whole, the Mac's installed base must be growing faster now that at any other time in the last several years. So why would HP pick now, of all times, to bail out? Then again, it's not like we particularly need HP, given the other scanner options available to Mac users; in fact, we're hard-pressed to think of any Mac users we know who have bought an HP scanner within the last five years. Most people seem to opt for offerings from Umax, Epson, and Agfa, so maybe it's no big loss. (By the way, for those of you who are fans of HP printers, fear not-- the Mac printer division isn't jumping ship. Yet.)
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SceneLink (1554)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/23/99 episode: May 23, 1999: Gateway prepares to unveil its latest "innovation" about two years after Apple discontinued a similar design. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard is apparently a few pages behind the rest of us, as they announce their discontinuation of Mac scanner development due to market size concerns, and "Redmond Justice" warms up with an out-of-court curve ball deposition by AOL's Steve Case...
Other scenes from that episode: 1553: Been There, Done That (5/23/99) Over the last couple of years, there have been a lot of changes in the Apple world, to be sure. For one thing, what was once a raging torrent of red ink the likes of which were not previously witnessed since those elevator doors opened in Stanley Kubrick's cinematic interpretation of Stephen King's The Shining has since transformed almost magically into a steady stream of black ink... 1555: Stay Tuned For Scenes... (5/23/99) Still getting psyched up for the return of "Redmond Justice"? 'Cause we sure are. If it were only going to be shown in theaters, we'd probably already be camped out for tickets by now. After all, Star Wars: Episode I may have been the culmination of sixteen long years of waiting by millions of fans, but "Redmond Justice" has been on hiatus for three months now!...
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