How Apple Became Avis

摘要

At last week's macworld Expo, the semiannual gathering of the Macintosh faithful, Apple Computer presented a self-congratulatory retrospective of its advertising. Lined up like trophies were examples of its marketing prowess over the past 10 years. But viewed another way, the exhibit symbolizes a great company in denial. It is the eve of the Windows 95 tsunami, and Apple is in danger oi'being swamped. Yet the company chooses to celebrate an ad campaign that failed to persuade most users to consider buying a genuinely superior product. Poor marketing, though, is only one reason that the smoothest, cleverest and most engaging computer system is now in danger of becoming marginal. It must be unimaginably frustrating to be an Apple executive these days. The world is abuzz with Windows 95, whose flashiest features were first conceived more than a decade ago by Apple hackers. When Apple packaged its first Macintosh, offering a level of ease of use and integration that Microsoft still hasn't matched, corporate users dismissed it as a toy. Now those same people are drooling at the prospect of Mac's innovations appearing in the new Microsoft system. Apple says 80 percent of those who consider buying a Macintosh will make the purchase. But Apple gets fewer than one in 10 computer buys. That means almost no neutral party even thinks about buying a Mac.