By Geoffrey Rowan The Globe and Mail, September 3, 1997
Apple Computer Inc., which has misstepped more times lately than a drunken clog dancer, has finally made a move in the right direction, but it's probably too late.

Apple is reclaiming its unique interface — the Macintosh operating system. And in any business, controlling the interface is where the money is, says intellectual property attorney Ron Katz of the San Francisco law firm Coudert Brothers.

Any business, that is, except computers, where the interface war is long over.

“With the Microsoft purchase [of $150-million (U.S.) worth of Apple shares], Apple is just a subsidiary of Microsoft now,” Mr. Katz says. “Apple has lost the battle. They lost it years ago. It was inevitable they'd lose it because they didn't control the interface.”

True enough. When most people interact with a PC, they do so through a Microsoft Corp. operating system. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple made a futile attempt to expand its relevance in 1994, by licensing its Mac OS to clone makers.

Its hope was that more companies selling Macs would expand market share for the operating system, creating a virtuous cycle. More market share would mean more independent software developers writing programs that run on the Mac OS, and with more of that so-called application software available, more people would buy Macs.

But in reality, by the time Apple licensed the Mac OS, its place in the market had been cemented. All the clones did was eat into the company's remaining share of the market, and cut into its profit margins.

By purchasing Power Computing Corp., the largest Mac clone maker, in a stock deal worth $100-million, Apple is sending a strong message that it intends to control the fate of its interface. At least it won't be done in by an evil twin.

There's a large body of evidence suggesting that control of the