Consisting of three key parts: a network file server, local area network and a network Laser printer, The Macintosh Office was Apple's third failed attempt to enter into the business environment as a serious competitor to IBM. In January 1985 Apple announced The Macintosh Office with an ill-fated, poorly received Sixty-second television commercial, dubbed Lemmings during the Super Bowl. Sadly it was a harbinger of things to come for Apple.

History

The Apple III

Following the success of the Apple II personal computer, Apple first sought sought to enter into the lucrative professional business market with the Apple III. A high-end computer with features geared toward the business professional, it suffered from many technical problems which plagued the system during most of its production run. As a result, Apple's reputation suffered and it lost any advantage it had entering into the business market. Apple's second attempt was with the introduction of the revolutionary Lisa which was a high-end computer aimed at the business community, based on the graphical user interface that was to become the basis of the Macintosh. Unfortunately it proved far too expensive and offered too few features for most businesses to justify the cost. A year later when the much less expensive Macintosh debuted, Lisa's fate was sealed and a year later was discontinued following less than three years of poor sales. While Apple had a hit with the Macintosh, they still needed a way to make inroads into the professional world and the Mac was already being criticized as a toy by the business community.

Strategy

The LaserWriter II

Fortunately, the Macintosh had been designed with a network chip built-into it. With the right hardware and software, every Macintosh was ready to be interconnected. Drawing on that background Apple set about developing its AppleTalk network which was to be interconnected by low-cost LocalTalk connectors. Armed with the proper networking hardware, Apple set about developing the other key pieces of its business suite.

It would include a dedicated file server they code-named Big Mac. Essentially it was conceived as a fast Unix-based server which ran the Mac OS as an interface shell.

Also included was a networked hard drive intended to be plugged directly into the network.

Finally, a Laser printer which would produce typeset quality documents also shared among all the users on the network.LocalTalk PhoneNet Connector

By January 1985 Apple was ready to launch the LocalTalk network which would allow a small office to inexpensively share its newly introduced LaserWriter printer. But the dedicated file server was up to two years away. The networked hard disk was closer, but still over a year away. By early 1985, Apple did not even offer a hard drive that work on Macintosh, much less a networked one. Unfortunately, Apple's newly announced network could do little else but print. As a stop-gap measure, Apple had re-branded the Lisa 2/10 as the Macintosh XL and dropped the price substantially. With its built-in 10MB hard drive, greater RAM and Macintosh System emulation software MacWorks, the XL was positioned to act as the file server until Apple could develop the replacement. However, there was no file sharing software to take advantage of the Macintosh XL. Nevertheless, based on the premise promised by the Macintosh Office, the Macintosh XL sold well at its reduced price, so well that Apple ran out of parts forcing it to be discontinued long before the replacement network server was ready.The Macintosh XL

In the meantime, third party developers working with Apple, such as Infosphere and Centram Systems West (later Sun Microsystems) created AppleTalk-based file sharing applications called XL/Serve (later MacServe) and TOPS respectively. The former was actually a hard disk sharing application that allowed a remote client Mac to log onto a hard drive connected to the host Mac and work on a file. However, this arrangement meant that only one user could access the file volume at a time. Nevertheless it fulfilled one of the main features of the Macintosh Office: a networked hard drive. By contrast, TOPS was a true file sharing application. With TOPS a remote client could log onto a host Mac and access and work on any file simultaneously with another remote or the host user. In addition, TOPS did not require a dedicated host, rather every Mac could be a host, offering peer-to-peer file sharing. What's more, TOPS was not limited to the Macintosh, but could also share files across platforms with IBM PCs. Both of these products, as well as others, helped fulfill Apple's announcement of the Macintosh Office.Hard Disk 20

Nevertheless, none of the software available represented a unified solution fully supported by Apple. Following the early removal of the Macintosh XL, Apple finally delivered its first hard drive for the Macintosh. Nine months after announcing it, the Hard Disk 20 was a mere 20MB hard drive. Though a welcome addition, it was slow and delivered none of the promise of a network file server. Though third party products made good use of it, Apple would not offer another installment of the poorly implemented Macintosh Office for well over a year. Instead Apple canceled the UNIX-based Big Mac file-server concept and chose to centre on the next generation Macintosh II.

In January 1987, Apple finally introduced its file sharing application AppleShare. Together with a faster SCSI hard drive, the Hard Disk 20SC released 3 months earlier, Apple finally offered an officially supported unified, simple to use file sharing network. However, it failed to deliver on the promise of the initial announcement made 2 years earlier. At best, the Macintosh Office was a piecemeal solution run on comparatively underpowered Macs, lacking many of the features offered by third party applications before it. In fact it would be almost 5 more years before AppleShare would offer peer-to-peer file sharing under System 7. It would take four more months for the release of expandable Macs which could accommodate the growing industry standard, Ethernet and larger, faster built-in hard drives powerful enough to manage AppleTalk's potential to serve a large office. IBM network compatibility was still unavailable.

Legacy

Though largely considered a failure by most, The Macintosh Office ushered in the era of Desktop Publishing with the advent of the LaserWriter, the low-cost network interface which made it affordable and the resulting software developers who took advantage of the Macintosh GUI and the printer's PostScript professional looking output. More than anything this cemented Apple's reputation as a serious computer and its indispensable place in the office, particularly when compared to the capabilities of its DOS based counterparts.