Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!warp!rock From: rock%w...@Sun.COM (Bill Petro - Program Management Office) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: MacWorld Expo Report: Gassee's address Message-ID: <39319@sun.uucp> Date: 19 Jan 88 20:11:15 GMT Sender: n...@sun.uucp Reply-To: r...@sun.UUCP (Bill Petro - Program Management Office) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 116 Summary: "How to Keep Japan Inc. from Eating our Sushi". Macworld Expo 1988 Report by Bill Petro Report on keynote address by Apple VP Jean-Louis Gassee: "How to Keep Japan Inc. from Eating our Sushi". The outspoken and flamboyant vice president of research and development for Apple Computer told the more than two thousand present that if America licenses its processor technology and system software to the Japanese it would lose its supremacy in the personal computing market. In his twenty-six minute keynote address to the MacWorld Expo held at Moscone Center in San Francisco Saturday morning, Gassee identified what he believed were three trends that threatened America's position in world economy. First, he said, "In technology we are losing our jewels." "In the workplace", he said, "we are losing our spirit, and in education we are losing our minds." In education he said, we are graduating from our colleges only one half of the engineers we need. In the industry only 5% of the employees are engineers. He said that 75% of the MIT graduating engineers are snatched up by Digital Equipment Corporation. In Japan, 30-40% of the employees are engineers. In the Japanese parliament, 53% of the members have technical backgrounds, in the U.S. congress, only 2. Not 2% but 2 people. It escaped no ones notice that Gassee's background is as a mathematician. In the workplace, he pointed out that one of the most exciting automobile manufacturers in America is in Ohio - Honda of Ohio. But he spent the most part of his time discussing the technological area, where he felt that we are giving away our "crown jewels". (He said that the Apple legal department recommended against using the phrase "family jewels".) He pointed out that one of the things that has kept the Japanese from developing a strong "home grown" personal computer market is the difficulty of their language, their very difficult script. A fully developed vocabulary can take over ten thousand characters, not words, to fully express it. However, if America were to license its two most significant technological weapons - its processor technology and its system software, the Japanese would be eager to test it, refine it and then offer to the market a cheaper, faster, and better alternative. "Freely licensing system software to all comers would be to give away the crown jewels", said Gassee. "Since Japan can get access to RISC technology and the new standard operating system, in the same way the Japanese can claim a huge market share as when the transistor was licensed." "Apple will not do this." "It will adapt standards as they will help customers." This was greeted by a round of applause. Gassee did congratulate Digital Equipment Corporation for their "David-like" success against the "Goliath" of the industry by using a proprietary operating system. Following his address were twenty-five minutes of question and answers. When asked what Americans should do, he said that protectionism would not solve the problem of maintaining the competitive edge we currently have in the personal computing market. However, he did suggest voting with wallets. Although he did not mention any particular vendors by name, a question from the audience mentioned Sun Microsystems. He was careful to avoid a direct comment about any particular company and tried to keep his answers general, but did say that companies that followed the practice of licensing their microprocessor technology and system software to the Japanese would see their margins decrease. He recommended that the "David's" must protect their research and development ability, and that "a shot in the arm now" could be "a shot in the head later". "The Japanese are willing to examine your product and offer some helpful comments about bugs, but will then later say to the market, 'Yes that is nice, but we have something that is cheaper, faster, and better'". Gassee is an entertaining and engaging speaker, and is the most personable and colorful of the Apple spokesmen. He made jokes about MBA's and lawyers. However, on a couple of occasions he responded to questions by not answering them in a way that one would hardly notice. To the question, "How does Apple's local operating system avoid the 'Tower of Babel' situation we have now", Gassee curiously and rather conveniently misunderstood the question and answered instead by explaining that the Macintosh OS "resource files" could be customized for any particular language in the world, replacing English with French for example. It was clear, at least to this reporter, that the question dealt with a closed operating system in a world of emerging standards. A thirty minute panel discussion titled "Macintosh - Wizard of '88" followed his address during which he was asked other questions. To the question about whether Apple was endeavoring to produce a second standard with its QuickDraw page description language when it appears that the industry is moving toward a universal acceptance of PostScript, his answer was rather circumlocutious, suggesting differences with screen and printer resolutions, and the difficulty of re-engineering. However, this view is not shared by all, and Cary Lu, the "philosopher-writer" of the Macintosh world as much as said so in the panel discussion. He believes that there will and must be one standard page description language. When Gassee was asked about the rumor of whether Apple will supply a answerlow cost" Macintosh, Gassee answered that Apple needed to maintain its profit margin in order to supply the research and development needed to maintain its high standards. This answer was less than convincing and Cary Lu made a number of interesting comments. "Apple offers no portable Macintosh, no low cost Macintosh, and no high powered Macintosh", said Lu. "Can one computer company supply the need? If RCA had not licensed its technology where would the television be now?" Lu wanted to see "just enough profit margin for research and development". Cary Lu offered three scenarios for the future. "Apple could hold on to its private operating system and others would compete like Windows, X.11, and OS/2 and prices for the high end competitors would come down." Secondly, "it could be cloned without permission, and forgetting the legal issues, there would be the difficulty of software compatibility." Thirdly, "Apple could license its ROM. This might not seem to be in Apple's interest. But how about second or third sources? This would allow for a high performance or a low cost machine." {cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!warp!rock Bill Petro