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Do Be Do Be Do (6/28/99)
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Hands up, who remembers Be? A few years ago, the BeOS was the subject of most of the buzz around the Apple water cooler; back when Apple finally saw that Copland, its semi-modern next-generation version of the Mac OS, just wasn't going to happen, Gil Amelio and co. decided to "Think Different" ages before Apple adopted the slogan as a marketing hook. Gil actually crashed through Apple's long-standing "Not Invented Here" snobbery and decided to look for outside help; Apple went shopping for technology that would form the basis of a new Mac OS. And for a while, Be's fledgling operating system looked like a lock-- so much so that, if we recall correctly, both MacUser and Macworld ran cover stories on the BeOS touting it as the forerunner to what we'd all be running on our Macs in a couple of years.
Of course, that's when Steve Jobs walked back in with his Reality Distortion Field running full blast and persuaded Apple to buy his own NeXT company for $400 million, even though in many ways the NeXTStep operating system seemed less suited to Macs than the BeOS did. But even though Be's operating system wouldn't become the next Mac OS, they continued to develop it to run on PowerPC-based Mac hardware-- until Steve stopped giving them the hardware specs necessary to support the latest and greatest Macs, such as the G3. Since then, we in the Mac world have heard less and less about Be, who turned to the Intel side of the fence since Apple wouldn't play ball.
We always wondered how Be would be able to compete on a hardware platform where Windows dominates and Linux is seen as a somewhat unlikely contender-- Microsoft's got the monopoly and Linux has the benefit of being free, so where does the BeOS fit in? But it appears that Be is finally starting to catch on with PC manufacturers who want a media-oriented operating system and who don't want to pay the dreaded "Windows tax." According to a CNET article, two companies are using variants of the BeOS on new consumer-grade products: iDot, who plans to ship low-cost BeOS systems, and Microworkz, who's working on the super-low-cost super-simple "iToaster" (gee, what product-naming bandwagon are these folks jumping on?). AST Research is also planning on shipping high-end BeOS systems for multimedia work. Not that we're making any predictions, here, but let's say Microsoft's ineptness in court starts a chain reaction, the BeOS catches on like wildfire, and in ten years Apple is struggling against the surging tides of Be's massive market share. Wouldn't that just be the perfect irony?
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SceneLink (1631)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 6/28/99 episode: June 28, 1999: After a mild stumble in April, the iMac is back in the sales race with a vengeance, as it captures the number 3 spot in April's retail stats. Meanwhile, the BeOS is starting to catch on with PC manufacturers who don't feel like making Bill Gates even richer, and a doll in Japan sports iMac garb as a fashion statement...
Other scenes from that episode: 1630: Back In The Saddle (6/28/99) For those of you who thought the magic was gone, think again. Sure, April's retail sales figures told a heartbreaking story as the iMac fell out of the PC Data Top 5 for the first time since its introduction in August of last year, but hope springs eternal; while naysayers held that the iMac was on its way out, the iMac faithful quietly noted that the combined sales of all iMacs-- Bondi and fruit-flavored and every revision ever made-- actually would have taken the number one slot... 1632: Size XXXXXXXXS (6/28/99) "The iMac is just a toy." Boy, how many times have you heard that tired twist on the age-old argument? The notion that Macs aren't "real computers" (apparently because normal people can use them) dates back to when the Mac first appeared...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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