DaveNet: Saturday, August 30, 1997; by Dave Winer.

Power Computing Business Plan

Just for fun, assuming what I've heard is true, I decided this morning to write a new business plan for Power Computing.

Pretend

I'm going to make believe I'm the new CEO of Power Computing.

Tuesday morning I have a meeting with the CFO.

How much is in the bank? I ask.

About $25 million.

Next steps

First I issue a public statement to former Power Computing customers.

I apologize for abandoning them. I understand that they never asked to be Apple customers. I ask for their forgiveness. I'm down on my hands and knees. It will never happen again as long as I'm the CEO of this company. We're organizing a new business that will be immune to this kind of rough treatment for customers.

Hire some programmers

I'd make offers to individual programmers who know the Mac the best.

Andy Hertzfeld would on my list. Andy was part of the original Mac development team, and he understands the soul of the OS better than anyone else, I think.

Chuck Shotton understands the architecture of the Internet and the Mac system.

Mark Aldritt knows AppleScript better than anyone on the planet.

I hear that Darin Adler, the lead developer of System 7, is floating around.

Just for fun I'd call up Steve Capps at Microsoft and see if he's interested.

Then I'd go to Connectix. There are a couple of guys there that really get it.

Windows MC

We'd build a new layer of software for Windows NT that a Mac user could love. Some glitches are unavoidable, you can't make a Wintel clone behave exactly like a Mac. But there's lots you can do. And to compensate for the burnt braincells, Windows MC would add some powerful new things that you can't do with the Mac OS.

Key difference: In Windows MC you launch Windows apps. No need to worry about Microsoft Office shipping for this platform. Or anything else for that matter.

The spiritual side

We embody the spirit of the Mac.

The Mac OS is history, but the spirit lives on.

We're a software company

Windows is our base OS. Much of our software ships for the Mac OS too. Same with various flavors of Unix. We take cross-platform seriously.

We build a new set of utility apps. A new file system editor (on the Mac this is called the Finder). Scripting is deeply integrated and intuitive. Email and web authoring. Databases. Smart sandboxes.

Great net utilities, designed to make school networks hum, and print and web publishing systems fun and productive for all levels of organizations.

We move the users where many of them want to go. Windows.

Education and content development.

Steve Jobs figured it out.

We did too!

Let's have fun!

Dave

PS: I'd call up Bill Gates and ask him to invest in the new company.

PPS: Then I'd call John Warnock at Adobe.

PPPS: Remember, Apple Avoids Competition.