As the Apple Turns: Scene 354: Endangered Species (1/13/98)

Endangered Species (1/13/98)

UMAX is the only remaining survivor of the Great Clone Wars, but they may not linger much longer. According to Computer Reseller News, their Mac OS licensing deal expires in July, and rumor has it that talks to renew the agreement aren't going as well as they could be. If UMAX and Apple fail to come to a new agreement by July, UMAX will have until the end of the year to sell off all of their remaining clones, after which they, too, will be officially out of the Mac clone business.

So far, UMAX seems eager to try to reach a new agreement. Phil Pompa, their director of marketing, said that they'd be amenable to terms that restrict UMAX clones to certain geographical areas and certain price points, so that their sales would expand the Mac OS user base instead of just cannibalizing sales from Apple. Given that Apple still can't seem to ship a cheap box for the home market, it seems like a great idea to let UMAX do it; putting more Mac-compatible systems into consumers' homes is a great way to stem the flow of developers (especially games developers) that are jumping ship. Sounds like everyone wins to us.

In the end, it's really all up to Apple. And, until a full-time CEO is announced, that means it's really all up to Steve. We all know how Steve feels about the cloning issue; the trail of twisted and smoking corpses he's left in his wake since last August make that all pretty clear. So the question is, can UMAX find a way to convince Steve that keeping a cloner around is beneficial to Apple? Indeed, will UMAX even decide that it's worth the effort any longer?

SceneLink (354)

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From the writer/creator of AtAT, a Pandemic Dad Joke taken WAYYYYYY too far

The above scene was taken from the 1/13/98 episode:

January 13, 1998: (Sorry—this was before we started writing intro text for each episode!)

Other scenes from that episode:

355: Next Up: Fistfights? (1/13/98) Uh-oh, sounds like everyone's patience is wearing thin in today's episode of "Redmond Justice." Just check out this Reuters story which paints an ugly picture of tensions running high. Reading that Judge Jackson "sharply disagreed" with Microsoft's lawyer Richard Urowsky sounds, at best, euphemistic...
356: We LIKE Passive (1/13/98) And while we're speaking of Internet Explorer, one big feature in the current Windows version that doesn't exist on the Mac is the "Active Desktop," which reportedly turns one's entire desktop into a big ol' "internet-ready container," according to Webintosh-- but they say that Mac users may not have to wait much longer for that feature...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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