Leader: Apple gets caught in its own Web

1997 could well be remembered as the year of going direct. We all know the Compaq channel U-turn story pretty much inside out by now ? Home & Office, but no resellers. Well, now it?s the turn of Apple, whose purchase of Power Computing has prompted speculation that it is about to start selling direct ? speculation that has been reinforced by reports in the US that it will be selling low-end systems via a Web site which goes live on 1 October. Last year Gil Amelio, then Apple CEO, said wider licensing agreements with clone manufacturers would soon put Apple on the road to recovery. Amelio?s ideas are now out of favour and it wasn?t long before Apple started to compete fiercely with the Mac clone vendors. It has subsequently followed this course of action by saying it won?t supply future OS technology to its existing licensees. The clone market is now in disarray with Motorola and Umax frozen out of the picture ? only by coughing up greatly increased licence fees will they be able to keep up with Apple. Steve Jobs, currently sitting pretty at the top of Apple, has already gone on the record that he plans to persuade clone users that they should move back to the Apple brand. Apple is yet another manufacturer that has said it wants to emulate the success of Dell. There are distinct echoes of what Compaq was saying less than a year before it admitted it would turn its back on its 100 per cent indirect ethos. None of which can be reassuring for the existing Apple channel. Stability has to be one of the single most important things a business needs if it is going to plan for the future with any degree of confidence. A company that can?t make up its mind whether it supports a healthy clone market or wants to eliminate it, and which has always championed the dealer channel but now wants to sell direct over the Web, can be sure it is sending out at least one clear message: ?We don?t know what we?re doing?. It?s hardly a solid foundation on which to build long-term business success. Apple has performed so many about-turns in recent history that cynics would be excused for thinking the direct sales idea will be very short lived. If this turns out to be the case, it might be too late for Apple to save its skin again, as by then the dealer community may well have decided that enough is enough.