A Memory of Gateway
About a dozen years ago or so, I was coming out of H&H Music after purchasing a large fake-book in what would ultimately prove a futile attempt to figure out how hit songs are composed. Nearby, in the set of strip centers just outside Baybrook Mall, was a “Gateway Country” store, easily visible from a zillion miles away by its big, black and white cow colors.
Every time I saw that Gateway store, it depressed me. As an Apple aficionado I had watched my favorite computer decline steadily throughout the late ’80s and into the mid ’90s under the stewardship of stiff CEOs from Planet Suit’n’tie. Both the company and its products seemed to get bleaker by the year. The computers looked more and more like generic, beige boxes, not significantly different than their market-dominating cousins on the Windows side. OS 8 and 9 looked more like a copy of Windows than ever, the interface items becoming greyer and squarer with each iteration. And Apple’s retail presence was almost completely confined to obscure, local, niche stores that didn’t do a particularly good job of showing off the product in any public way. As if to cement the certainty of Apple’s demise, Gateway, the then-juggernaut of the PC world, suddenly built their stores all over the place.
I never set foot in that Gateway store (something I now regret) — not out of spite but because I thought that my depressing feeling about Apple’s fate would only get ten times worse once I had seen the Gateway glory firsthand. So in my mind, I imagined a stunning, clean interior with gleaming, screaming-fast computers neatly arranged, and friendly, bright, knowledgeable employees brimming with answers to every doubt one might have about why to buy a Gateway PC. “If only Apple had something like that,” I thought at the time, “but I guess you have to command Gateway-like volume to support the cost. Oh well.”
And then, as in the old cartoon with the scientists at their blackboard ... a miracle occurred. First, in what seemed like a wildly improbable move, Apple bought out NeXT, and reinstalled Steve Jobs back at the helm — at first in a so-called “interim” position, but then as time went by in what became clearly a permanent leadership post. Mac OS got a complete overhaul and became OS X. The first iMacs appeared, and I’m ashamed to say my honest initial reaction was, “Oh no, a tiny, cute, all-in-one Mac! This time in candy blue! Steve’s back and he’s crazier than ever!” But that reaction would turn to new respect and admiration just months later when, to my surprise, iMac sales turned out to be quite robust.
And the miracles didn’t stop. Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the Gateway stores all closed! Just like that. And at about the same time, Apple announced that they would be opening a set of retail stores around the country. Pundits quickly predicted dismal failure for these stores — after all, if Gateway couldn’t do it, how could Apple? — but I had a gut hunch it would work, especially when I heard that Apple’s goal for these stores was just that they break even. Exactly: Don’t lose money on them, and get people seeing Apple from a pro-Apple perspective for the first time ever. That sounded right to me. And, as if we didn’t all know by now, it worked beautifully. The Apple stores were everything I imagined the Gateway stores had been, and more.
Then came the iPod. As soon as I saw the first commercial for it, with a Cosmo Kramer-like New Yorker jamming his way out of his apartment to the hopping sounds of the Propellorheads, I breathed a sigh of relief: I had almost taken the bait and bought a Creative Nomad just weeks earlier when my all-things-tech buddy Jim Kluka (now an Indianapolis home theater designer) showed me one in the Vegas Harrah’s. Cool indeed, but not quite portable enough and not quite user-navigable enough, I thought. Better wait until they come out with a smaller, easier-to-use model. And they did — Apple did. Imagine that!
No sooner did the iPod take off than the pundits once again predicted doom. Here comes Microsoft with their own music store technologies and DRM, and they’ll license it to anyone who wants to buy! Meaning everyone but Apple. Too bad, said the naysayers, it’s going to be a repeat of Windows beating out the Mac all over again. And VHS beating out Beta. But a few pro-Apple voices said no — Beta only ever had dominance of an infant market, and the Mac never rose above 10% market share. Neither product was beaten out of a dominant share of a mature market. That position has been enjoyed only by VHS, by Windows — and now, by iPod. Needless to say, the iPod is still going strong, years after the Beta/Mac analogy wore thin and dropped off the op/ed radar.
Need I even mention iPhone? Icing on the cake. Its the PDA and the cell-phone both finally done right, and with an even better iPod thrown into the bargain. Who will confidently predict its failure? Anyone? Anyone? And hey, I think I just heard someone say that Apple’s market share in computers (not handheld devices) is rising towards 10% for the first time since the mid ’80s. How high will it go this time? Wait, did I just hear the sound of Windows proponents grumbling that Vista is a basket of headaches? And how about all those viruses swarming all over the Windows community? I’ve never installed anti-virus software on my Mac, never even configured a firewall. It just doesn’t seem to be a problem.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see that Gateway store with its white paint blazing in the insane Texas heat. Now comfortably relegated to the status of memory. Thank you, Steve. Miracles do happen.
Update 2007.09.03 — Just heard that Gateway has now been bought out by Acer, for a small fraction of their valuation back when I used to see that Gateway store at Baybrook Mall. Oh, and Baybrook now has an Apple store. In the mall. I’ll have to check it out if I’m ever back in Texas.
Update 2008.01.30 — You know those somewhat-cool-looking Dell kiosks you see in many malls? The kiosk where you can play with Dell products, but not actually buy anything? Dell’s just announced they’re getting rid of them. Too sweet.
Update 2008.03.18 — At it’s peak (in the latter half of the ’80s) the Mac had nearly 10% market share, then sunk to 5% or less for a very long time after that. NPD just reported that the Mac hit 14% last month, and was 25% by revenue. It has begun.
Note: 25% / 14% = 1.8, which means that, on average, Mac users paid 80% more for their computers. That does not, however, mean that a Mac costs 80% more than a similarly equipped PC. (Do a price comparison and see for yourself.) It simply means that the average Mac user buys a better-equipped model than does the average PC purchaser.
Update 2008.04.11 — This is just getting better and better every few months. Gartner analysts say Windows is collapsing due to bad design.
Update 2008.04.23 — Apple just had a record quarter, in the middle of a recession, no less. And check this portentous analysis of Microsoft’s situation at RoughlyDrafted.
Update 2008.05.01 — Joel On Software’s very negative assessment of Microsoft’s “architecture astronauts”, which reminds me of Surface, and how you can’t use Windows-dominance leverage against successful third-party products when those successful third-party products don’t actually exist.
And don’t miss this hilarious episode of Fake Steve gloating over the iPhone SDK and the equally hysterical first reader response and its counter-response!
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