NEWS ANALYSIS : A Little Computer With Big Impact : Machine Confounded the Pundits, and Next Generation Will Too
When the International Business Machines personal computer was introduced 10 years ago, pundits correctly saw it as an important product that would have a profound impact on the then-nascent desktop computer business.
But no one--least of all IBM itself--expected the machine to give new meaning to the word “clone,” or vault a tiny software company called Microsoft to worldwide prominence, or generally rewrite the book on how to succeed in the computer business.
Indeed, the IBM PC provides a wonderful lesson in the Law of Unintended Consequences, and suggests that while today’s predictions about tomorrow’s technology aren’t necessarily wrong, they almost certainly don’t include what will turn out--in another 10 years--to have been the most important developments.
In 1981, the IBM PC was viewed as a home- and small-business computer, something for those who couldn’t quite afford a real computer but needed one. As it turned out, though, the biggest buyers were large corporations, and they continue to buy despite evidence that PCs--while useful for word processing and financial analysis--have brought little overall improvement in white-collar productivity.
The Apple Macintosh, introduced in 1984, was supposed to bring computing to the masses, though nobody could offer a very good reason why the masses would want computing. What the Mac really did was bring computing to creative professionals in businesses such as design and advertising, and the most important application for the machine turned out to be a completely unanticipated phenomenon called desktop publishing.
One lesson for predicting the PC future, therefore, is that sales will be driven by as-yet uninvented applications that appeal to as-yet unidentified groups of customers. In 10 years, many PCs will understand rudimentary speech and handwriting, they’ll have versatile wireless communications links, they’ll handle video and high-quality graphics, they’ll be very “user-friendly,” they’ll be far cheaper and faster than they are today.
But no one will buy them for those reasons.
“Most computer companies are driven by engineers who never ask the question: Why would somebody want one of these things?” says Richard Shaffer, principal of the New York consulting firm Technologic Partners. “It’s sort of like why people climb mountains. We build them because we can.”
Shaffer suggests that for the average consumer, the real importance of the PC over the next decade will lie not in spectacular new machines, but in the integration of PC technologies into other products. Digital telephone answering machines that organize messages, videocassette recorders that teach you how to program them, video games that have real live video--these kinds of products will take the electronics advances produced by the PC revolution and bring them to consumers in a genuinely useful form.
Businesses, on the other hand, will be looking for full-fledged computers that are cheaper and faster and easier to use, with some mix of new features (speech recognition, video or 3-D graphics) thrown in. The industry is betting that “object-oriented” software will make it possible to develop a whole new range of powerful applications, though no one can quite specify just what these new applications will solve.
Phillipe Kahn, chairman of software publisher Borland International, says the three big categories of computer applications in business--word processing, spreadsheets and database systems--will remain the focus of attention. But with object-oriented software, it will be possible to produce “more efficient, more capable, more reliable, more customizable” programs to carry out those tasks.
Personal computer pioneer Steven P. Jobs, on the other hand, believes that “interpersonal computing,” featuring simple but highly versatile voice, data and video communications among computers on a network, offers enormous opportunities for improving group productivity and will be a key factor in driving the sales of more-powerful desktop machines.
The massive reshuffling that’s now under way among computer companies reflects the general uncertainty about what people really want. Apple and IBM, equally unsure of their ability to produce a “second-generation” personal computer with broad appeal, have joined forces on the theory that sheer size and technological prowess will win out in the end.
Similarly, Compaq Computer, Digital Equipment and many other companies have banded together in a consortium to try to set a standard for a next-generation PC, sometimes now referred to as a “professional workstation.” Mainly, these companies know what they don’t want: a market dominated by chip maker Intel, software giant Microsoft, IBM and workstation producer Sun Microsystems.
Based on the IBM PC experience, though, it’s far from assured that any of these firms will be dominant in the PC business 10 years from now. Japanese companies such as Sony and Nintendo have shown themselves far more capable of packaging technology in useful, consumer-sized chunks than their American counterparts. While American firms maintain their futile efforts to get people to buy PCs for the home, Japanese firms are busy selling video game machines, computerized TV sets and VCRs, and digital audio equipment.
And if object-oriented software is really all it’s cracked up to be, a company such as Borland (or, who knows, a software firm no one has yet heard of) could conceivably exploit that technology in the business computer market and become the Microsoft of tomorrow.
Ironically, the Apple-IBM alliance, or the Compaq-Digital consortium, could be very successful and sell lots of computers, yet still find themselves unable to control the technical evolution of the industry. Just ask IBM.
The History of the PC
1975: The first personal computer, a hobbyists’ device that has no practical uses, is launched by a New Mexico company called Altair. William H. Gates III, above, and Paul Allen supply a software system, laying the groundwork for Microsoft Corp.
1977: The personal computer industry is launched as Steven P. Jobs, above, and Steve Wozniak roll out the Apple II. Commodore and Tandy introduce personal computers.
1981: International Business Machines, grudgingly recognizing that this new class of machines will be important, introduces its first PC. In an effort to get the product out quickly, IBM eschews tradition and uses hardware and software purchased from third parties.
1982: Compaq Computer, seizing the opportunity presented by IBM’s use of widely available components, introduces the first IBM-compatible machine, or “clone.”
1984: Apple introduces the Macintosh, now widely recognized as technological tour-de-force for its ease of use. IBM launches the PC AT.
1985: John Sculley, above, a Pepsi executive brought in by Apple Chairman Steve Jobs to help manage Apple’s transition to the big time, ousts Jobs in a notorious palace coup.
1986: Compaq introduces the first machine using Intel’s 386 chip, now considered the standard for IBM-compatible PCs.
1987: IBM tries to stem the clone tide with the PS/2, and announces it will work with Microsoft on a new operating system called OS/2.
1989: Lightweight laptop and “notebook” PCs become the fastest growing piece of the PC business, with Japanese vendors NEC and Toshiba in the lead.
1990: Slow sales of OS/2 and Microsoft’s desire to focus on its hot-selling Windows product lead to the breakdown of the IBM/Microsoft partnership.
1991: Amid an industry-wide slump, IBM and Apple stun the industry by agreeing to work together to develop a new generation of PCs.
A Decade of IBM Personal Computers
Although machines from Apple and other manufacturers were already on the market, the introduction of IBM’s PC on Aug. 12, 1981, was a turning point for the personal computer.Total IBM Units Shipped in the U.S.
in millions
1990: 1.57 IBM’s Share of PC Market
In percent of U.S. market
1990: 17%
Source: International Data Corp.
