Why did IBM clones overtake and become PCs with open standards and lots of manufacturers where as Apple clones never took off

[Wolverine2349]

I have always wondered this. I mean so long ago it used to be IBM vs Apple like when I was a little kid and clones were just starting to come on board and IBM PC compatible was a thing. For at least 20 years it has ben referred to as PC/Wintel and such.

 

Though Apple, how come there were never any successful clones that lasted?? Was it because IBM did  not care to take legal action. Or was it because the IBM PC BIOS ROM could be cloned legally more easily?

 

Its interesting and a good thing that PCs became so open standard. Though the dominant OS for PCs despite all the competition is Windows by Microsoft and has been really since late 1995 to early 1996. There is very small marketshare of Linux and some others, but Microsoft does control almost all of desktop PC market. Despite there being competition and choices in the hardware spaces for nearly 30 years or even more if you go back to the actual clones of the 80s.

 

Imagine if there was the same competition in the operating system space and it was open like the hardware space. I mean you have intel vs AMD. Dell vs HP and Lenovo and Acer. AMD vs NVIDIA. Asus vs Gigabyte vs ASRock vs MSI for motherboards. Imagine how things would be if the same was true for operating systems and they were open standards and you could run all games on different Linux versions or different open sourced Windows versions if they were ever a thing??

[da na]

One word:

 

Legality.

[Wolverine2349]

2 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

One word:

 

Legality.

Why was that the case. Was it because IBM did not care?? Did IBM not really own the PC ROM BIOS architecture where as Apple owned theirs's and it could not be cloned and sold legally? Or did both own there's its just that Apple cared a lot ore about shutting clones down? Or was the IBM easier to clone legally?

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 minute ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Though Apple, how come there were never any successful clones that lasted?? Was it because IBM did  not care to take legal action. Or was it because the IBM PC BIOS ROM could be cloned legally more easily?

The only thing not off the shelf in a the IBM PC was the BIOS and Compaq and then others managed to produce working BIOS without copying it and violating copyright.  Everything else was off the shelf parts.  IBM tried to pivot to the MCA bus architecture so that more of the hardware was IBMs own design but it flopped and the PC 'Clone' thrived.

The Apple hardware was far more proprietary and prevented unlicensed clones from moving into the market.  There are indeed some Apple clones but most are licensed and relatively rare.

[da na]

Just now, Wolverine2349 said:

Why was that the case. Was it because IBM did not care?? Did IBM not really own the PC ROM BIOS architecture where as Apple owned there's and it could not b cloned and sold?

Well, I meant that for the 'open source Windows'.

.exes are one of the things that make Windows, well, Windows. And the code that makes those run is copyrighted my MS. Same with most other things that make Windows Windows. 

[Kilrah]

Apple clones were pretty successful until Apple shut them down.

[Wolverine2349]

15 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Well, I meant that for the 'open source Windows'.

.exes are one of the things that make Windows, well, Windows. And the code that makes those run is copyrighted my MS. Same with most other things that make Windows Windows. 

Yes true which is why Windows is not open source unless Microsoft decides to make it open source which of course they never will. What I was stating is imagine if Windows or the OS for PCs was open source and had the same type of competition that there was in the hardware market? Even more open and lots more choices just as there is with hardware. I mean many says we should thank Microsoft for their OS becoming dominant as it supported all types of  hardware and dropped hardware prices. They were great on that. Though their strategy was to control and be the only OS and have almost all programs written for it and it worked brilliantly which is why they became who they are today.

 

If IBM succeeded on their Micro Channel Architecture, we would not only be locked into a specific hardware platform, but maybe their own OS (OS/2 as well).

[BondiBlue]

The Apple clone market was pretty different than the market of IBM clones and similar systems. The Apple clones were licensed directly by Apple, but the program was killed off after Jobs returned. 

[Middcore]

As already mentioned, Mac clones (which were not the same situation as the "IBM clones" or "PC compatibles" because they were licensed by Apple) were somewhat successful while they existed. Well, that was pretty much the darkest hour for Mac popularity in general, but to the extent people were buying Macs at all they were buying the clones too.

 

Apple chose to kill off the Mac clone market on purpose. When they brought Steve Jobs back by buying NeXTSTEP to be the basis of their new operating system after it became clear Copland (their planned successor to System 7, which they had been using with continual updates for years) was never going to be viable, they took advantage of a clause in the licensing contract with the Mac clone manufacturers that only allowed the clones to use System 7. 

 

So they released Mac OS 8 as a stopgap incorporating some of the modernizations developed for Copland and to kill the clone market. (Then OS 9 was another transitional release before the NeXTSTEP-based OS X.)  OS 8 could have just been System 7 point whatever but by presenting it as a "new" OS they barred the clones from using it (and also got some publicity for finally releasing a "new" operating system after Copland's development had basically become a meme).  

 

Apple actually just bought out a couple of the bigger clone companies though, so there was a very brief period at the end of the clone era where some of the computers sold by those companies did ship with OS 8. 

 

 

[Master Disaster]

This is a very interesting question and one I can answer,

 

The Apple clone program was started after Steve Jobs left Apple to create NeXt Computers, at the time he wasn't happy about Apples direction and them picking the M68K architecture (apparently it was a board decision and one he was not happy about). Mac users call this Apples dark period, their machines were pretty underpowered compared to PCs of the same era and the company was losing money hand over fist.

 

The clone program was born as a way for Apple to get some extra cash in and I believe it was kind of successful for them. It was Jobs who canned the entire thing after Apple purchased NeXt and Jobs returned to Apple. He had tried to change the terms of the license to favour Apple more, when the other parties said no his response was to tell them that after their current license expired it would not be renewed.

 

Mac OS 7 was the only officially licensed version ever done by Apple, one version of 8 does exist but I don't remember the specifics of its existence off hand (iirc one company had licensed 8 before Jobs canned everything and he had to honour the contract).

 

As for your question, the answer is simple economics. IBM PCs were VERY expensive and the clone manufacturers (mostly Compaq who nearly sent IBM to bankruptcy after winning a lawsuit over the reverse engineering of the IBM BIOS) were able to release competing products for much cheaper than IBM AT class machines.

 

Conversely Apple in the mid to late 90s were in financial trouble, had an ageing and underpowered architecture and even their own audience were getting sick of them releasing the exact same machine under 2 or 3 different name and with 2 or 3 different prices (seriously, check out the Mac Performa line, its crazy how manu repeated SKUs they had). The clones didn't have the same impact because the market wasn't interested in the same machines with a different name.

[Middcore]

8 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

(seriously, check out the Mac Performa line, its crazy how manu repeated SKUs they had). 

 

The Performas were intended to be sold at the big-box stores of the time like CompUSA and so forth while all of the "regular" Macs were only sold by Apple "authorized reseller" dealers. Apple felt they were losing their money by not having their machines in those big box and department stores... but their contract with their authorized dealers said they couldn't sell the same computers at the regular retailers... so they just rebranded a bunch of their own models as the "new" Performa line for "consumers" while the regular models sold by the authorized dealers were supposedly for "professionals." But every Performa has a corresponding "professional" Mac model which it is basically identical to I think. Apart from branding only difference would be what software came bundled with it maybe.

 

Problem was, the sales and service staff at those big box and department stores weren't trained on the features of the Apple stuff, how to fix them if a demo machine broke or a customer brought one back, etc. Plus Windows machines were generally cheaper and stores got incentives to sell them with promotions and stuff, and a lot of stores had their own "house brand" of Windows computer which Apple wouldn't let them do with a Mac. So the entire Performa concept was basically a total failure and only hurt Apple's rep further. 

[Master Disaster]

13 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

The Performas were intended to be sold at the big-box stores of the time like CompUSA and so forth while all of the "regular" Macs were only sold by Apple "authorized reseller" dealers. Apple felt they were losing their money by not having their machines in those big box and department stores... but their contract with their authorized dealers said they couldn't sell the same computers at the regular retailers... so they just rebranded a bunch of their own models as the "new" Performa line for "consumers" while the regular models sold by the authorized dealers were supposedly for "professionals." But every Performa has a corresponding "professional" Mac model which it is basically identical to I think. Apart from branding only difference would be what software came bundled with it maybe.

I mean, even with the Performa range they had repetition. The entire thing is messy and confusing.

13 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Problem was, the sales and service staff at those big box and department stores weren't trained on the features of the Apple stuff, how to fix them if a demo machine broke or a customer brought one back, etc. Plus Windows machines were generally cheaper and stores got incentives to sell them with promotions and stuff, and a lot of stores had their own "house brand" of Windows computer which Apple wouldn't let them do with a Mac. So the entire Performa concept was basically a total failure and only hurt Apple's rep further. 

Yep, Windows 95 was a HUGE deal back then, MS marketed the hell out of it (remember Jay Leno on Stage and Bill Gates as Doom guy promoting DirectX?)

[CerealExperimentsLain]

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

I mean, even with the Performa range they had repetition. The entire thing is messy and confusing.

Yep, Windows 95 was a HUGE deal back then, MS marketed the hell out of it (remember Jay Leno on Stage and Bill Gates as Doom guy promoting DirectX?)

They have the whole company the day off to celebrate the release of 95.  Wild times.

[demonix00]

On 9/10/2021 at 7:21 PM, Wolverine2349 said:

Though Apple, how come there were never any successful clones that lasted?? Was it because IBM did  not care to take legal action. Or was it because the IBM PC BIOS ROM could be cloned legally more easily?

There were companies that were sued by IBM because they just copied the BIOS as is as the system BIOS was copyrighted material, but others reverse engineered the IBM BIOS and created their own with none of the IBM BIOS code included.

 

Apple clones were officially approved by apple, but Steve Jobs put an end to all the clone licenses when he went back to apple.

[Guest willies leg]

It's apples and oranges, literally.

 

IBM never "licensed" clones, they built their original PC's off of commodity hardware. The BIOS was successfully reverse-engineered and clean-room developed to produce clones.

 

The original clones weren't all that good, because the BIOSes weren't 100% compatible, and a lot of stuff relied on that. I remember it was a "good clone" if it could play Microsoft Flight Simulator successfully.

 

Microsoft wasn't exclusive with IBM with DOS. So they'd roll out DOS for whatever clone company wanted it.

 

IBM later tried to pull it all back under their umbrella with their PS/2 series, which sold a bunch to big business because they were forced to buy them, and few others. There was a PC jr PS/2 if I remember correctly. It's all gone now.

 

In fact, IBM sold their entire PC line to Lenovo, they're out of the PC business altogether. So that wasn't really a success story, eh?

 

Meanwhile, Apple strictly controlled their computer ecosystem, with the bumbling idiot CEO parade of John Sculley, Michael Spindler, and Gil Amelio. Gil, perhaps the 2nd worse Apple CEO after Tim Cook. The only thing Gil did right was to bring back Steve Jobs. Tim hasn't done anything right.

 

Anyway, Apple (Steve Jobs, when he returned), shut down the Apple clone licensing program. They only made around $50 or so on each license, instead of the way more on each computer sold.

 

So Apple is still reluctantly in the PC business, and IBM isn't.

 

[Video Beagle]

On 9/10/2021 at 1:19 PM, Master Disaster said:

The clones didn't have the same impact because the market wasn't interested in the same machines with a different name.

The clone's at the time was where the exciting hardware developments in the Apple world were coming from. I can't remember any details anymore, but I do remember looking at them seriously at the time time when I was looking into getting a new Mac.

[whm1974]

On 9/13/2021 at 11:08 AM, willies leg said:

It's apples and oranges, literally.

 

IBM never "licensed" clones, they built their original PC's off of commodity hardware. The BIOS was successfully reverse-engineered and clean-room developed to produce clones.

 

The original clones weren't all that good, because the BIOSes weren't 100% compatible, and a lot of stuff relied on that. I remember it was a "good clone" if it could play Microsoft Flight Simulator successfully.

 

Microsoft wasn't exclusive with IBM with DOS. So they'd roll out DOS for whatever clone company wanted it.

 

IBM later tried to pull it all back under their umbrella with their PS/2 series, which sold a bunch to big business because they were forced to buy them, and few others. There was a PC jr PS/2 if I remember correctly. It's all gone now.

 

In fact, IBM sold their entire PC line to Lenovo, they're out of the PC business altogether. So that wasn't really a success story, eh?

 

Meanwhile, Apple strictly controlled their computer ecosystem, with the bumbling idiot CEO parade of John Sculley, Michael Spindler, and Gil Amelio. Gil, perhaps the 2nd worse Apple CEO after Tim Cook. The only thing Gil did right was to bring back Steve Jobs. Tim hasn't done anything right.

 

Anyway, Apple (Steve Jobs, when he returned), shut down the Apple clone licensing program. They only made around $50 or so on each license, instead of the way more on each computer sold.

 

So Apple is still reluctantly in the PC business, and IBM isn't.

 

At first there were IBM Workalikes. They used the 8086/8088 CPUs and ran MS-DOS. But were not completely compatible with the IBM PC.