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AppleNet
We will make the Internet as easy to use as the Macintosh. -- Larry Tesler
Apple's approach to the Internet is simple: Make getting onto and using the Internet as easy as using a Macintosh.
This means taking Apple's legacy in innovative software design and applying it to the Internet. It means using words, pictures, sounds and videos to solve problems. It means making arduous tasks simple. And, perhaps most important, it means making these capabilities available to any user, anywhere, no matter how they connect to the Internet.
The Internet--We're all over it!
Which means we're applying our technologies and expertise to just about every area in which people want to work with the Internet -- from creating a website to just plain surfing around. So, we're focusing on four essential areas:
- Access -- getting on the Internet with minimal hardware and software setup, and integrating Internet content with local documents and the desktop.
- Delivery -- provide Internet and intranet servers that make the management and distribution of content simple and secure.
- Creation -- leveraging the Macintosh tradition in publishing and multimedia to make both professional and personal web authoring easy to do.
- Platform -- support major Internet standards in all our operating systems, to facilitate the development of access, creation, and delivery solutions.
Apple's approach to the Internet reflects something relatively new to the company: a move toward open standards and an open business model. We understand our strengths in certain key areas, but we also realize that no one company can "do it all" for the Internet. Apple's Internet strategy consists of three initiatives: We intend to use the Internet to run our own business better, by employing company "intranets" and by taking advantage of the World Wide Web and other Internet-based means of content delivery to enhance our communication with customers and developers.
We are championing the creation of new Internet capabilities, both by contributing our software technologies as Internet standards where appropriate -- such as in the area of multimedia -- and by establishing partnerships with other cutting-edge vendors to bring additional capabilities to the Internet as open industry standards. We will make all of our platforms -- Mac OS, Newton, and Pippin -- "best-of-class" products for Internet access, content creation, and delivery. We want the Apple logo to symbolize the easiest, most creative ways to work with the Internet.
Already, Apple products provide outstanding Internet features. For example, the Macintosh platform offers plug-and-play networking and full support for IP networking at the OS level. To complement this support, Apple has licensed Java technology, which will be embedded in all of our platforms. Also innate to the Mac OS is what we refer to as the media layer: Apple-developed technologies for interactive media that are now gaining support throughout the industry. The media layer includes technologies such as QuickTime, QuickDraw 3D, and QuickTime VR -- emerging Internet standards -- which support the creation and delivery of media-rich content. And in conjunction with key industry partners, Apple has announced Netscape plug-ins for QuickTime technologies and the movement of QuickDraw 3D and QuickTime VR into the VRML standards. Following are additional specifics about how Apple will help people to access, deliver, and create media-rich Internet content.