January 29, 1994: IBM Goes Mac?

Michael Spindler was strongly opposed to the notion of licensing Macs. Well, at least he was opposed to the idea until he announced that Apple expected to line up a major PC manufacturer to produce Mac clones.

The major PC manufacturer Spindler and Apple had in mind was IBM. It seemed like a natural marriage at the time; the PowerPC alliance was about to bear fruit and IBM was a third of the coalition. The sticking point was over the OS. Apple insisted that IBM employ Mac OS while IBM maintained that the OS choice should be left to the consumer. Since neither company would budge from their position, the "major" PC manufacturer Spindler had promised didn't materialize.

True Apple licensees wouldn't show up until April and when they did they were hardly what most people considered "major" PC manufacturers. The only semi widely known licensee was Bandai and they produced the ill-fated Pippin. Still, it was this week in January 1994 at the annual shareholder's meeting when Apple revealed that they were serious about cloning the Mac, roughly ten years too late.