I am watching with great interest the headlong rush to bail out the American auto industry. Having spent a couple of decades with Apple, I have a hard time having much sympathy for our auto giants.
You do not have to think back very far to remember the rotating magazine covers which predicted that an American icon, Apple, would soon be out of business.
The only problem with the scenario was that Apple and its customers refused to believe the predictions.
I am trying to remember the last time that I was passionate about an American car. It might have been my first car, a 1967 GTO. Then there was my Chevy truck that I had on the farm, but that was thirty years ago.
That is not to say that I did not try to like American vehicles or to say that Apple had an easy time of it. There was a time at Apple when some of the most capable employees were leaving faster than we could lay them off.
Yet there were employees (and customers) that refused to give up on the company. Steve Jobs came back and helped Apple reinvent itself. Never did Apple go begging hat in hand to the federal government.
I can still remember taking Gil Amelio to a meeting at CNN and then on to a reception where he was to talk to high level Atlanta area Apple customers who were concerned about Apple. Gil could not handle the meeting, he left after making the briefest of comments.
I can also remember Gil Amelio's extraordinarily boring MacWorld presentation.
Obviously he was the wrong leader for Apple, and really did not have a vision of where to take Apple.
Steve Jobs came back with a vision. He simplified the product line to the point that Apple could once again produce high quality products with a streamlined number of mother boards. He focused on using industry standard components.
He came out with the iMac which made some radical assumptions like no floppy disk drive, USB for peripheral connectivity, and built-in ethernet for broadband use in the home.
He then announced plans to transition Apple's engine from the OS9 gas guzzler to the modern hybrid OS X.
Over and over again we as employees heard from Steve that the only way we could get out of the crisis was to innovate our way out.
Along the way, there were many innovations like wireless connectivity, iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, and eventually the iPod and iPhone.
Apple had some advantages that the auto industry does not have. Apple's finest customers never lost their passion for the product, and even in Apple darkest days, Apple had products that people could love.
Another advantage for Apple is that Apple's competition never did really create a better alternative for Apple products. Perhaps the alternative was cheaper or fit better in the enterprise, but for the average person at home Apple's mileage was still significantly better than what you got on a Windows platform.
While Apple innovated in marketing by getting rid of paper brochures and focusing on the Internet, it also took a page from Lexus by creating its own showrooms or Apple Stores for its products.
Of course there were some other big differences, Apple had no pension plans, and even some of the incentives for working at Apple like stock options could easily be yanked from employees if Apple chose to show them the door.
While there might be a $15-$18 per hour tax on wages for union workers at the big three to support previously retired workers, Apple never got in that trap and moved almost all manufacturing to China and other inexpensive spots.
Apple was also quick to rid itself of products that did not make money and even quicker to dream up revenue streams that were more profitable than building computers.
As we sit here watching and waiting for the details of the Detroit bailout, I cannot help but remember that we will soon be at MacWorld time.
While Apple has set the telecommunications world on its head with the iPhone, there are some doubts about Apple mainstream computer hardware directions that this MacWorld might put to rest.
Some have questioned the wisdom of bringing out a new version of the MacBook and raising the price. The formula that has always worked the best for Apple is delivering more features, functionality, and style at the same price of the previous product.
Then there is the ancient Mac Mini which is long overdue for a real update.
Gradually over the last four years, there has been significant price creep at Apple with the exception of the iPhone which has gone down in price. This is in the face of even larger price declines in hardware from other manufacturers.
There have also been problems with MobileMe. I thought they might be gone but I had some challenges with iWeb just the other night.
Still there is no computer operating system and hardware combination that comes close to Apple, but as I talk to some longtime Apple users, I hear nagging doubts in their enthusiasm for current Apple products.
Many believe that Apple has abandoned its old users for new, easier to impress, and possibly fickle users.
I keep hearing people needing an under $1,000 Apple mini-tower with a couple of drivebays.
It will be interesting to see where Apple goes next and which customers become the next Apple fanatics who can carry the company through a future crisis.
The one thing I am certain about is that we will never see Apple go hat in hand to Washington. Maybe Apple could loan the automakers a few billion at an attractive rate.
That is the way I see it from here on the Crystal Coast where change is as certain as my commentary on it.
