Apple Looks At Europe

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Apple looks to the European marketplace

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Apple has an air of renewed interest in Europe and is starting to feel more confident in the new connectivity and management tools that should act as a battering ram helping to penetrate the strongholds of the MS-DOS world. In the latest edition of MacWorld Expo, to which we refer in more detail on pages 8 and 9, also showed a growing trend towards the selection of retailers, which are transformed into software houses capable of developing specific solutions for professional users. While visiting the fair, unfortunately, we, were unable to obtain a complete overview of the Italian situation, since the choice of Amsterdam as the geographical location, which brings together Apple users and distributors from around the continent, has profoundly influenced the character of the event.

Predominately, we saw the presence of exhibitors from the Benelux, (78 out of 130 exhibitors were Dutch, and 10 were from Belgian), while almost absent were the French, despite their pre-eminent position in the European market (only 8 companies were represented). Italians, arriving in droves, to visit the pavilion, had found few of their countrymen in booths waiting for them. There were only four Italian companies represented: Cigraph (architectural design using Mac), Group Editorial Ice, List (connections with Mac-mini), Softing (civil engineering applications). However, despite the preponderance of local visitors, MacWorld Europe certainly was a recorded success commensurate with expectations. Ten thousand guests were expected, and these expectations were closely met. Seminars organized in conjunction with the exposition were particularly interesting. Talks were of diverse topics such as connectivity, the use of the Macintosh desktop, tools for publishing or database managing. Surely the four key topics, which attracted more than their share of attention of the experts, were those of electronic publishing, local and departmental networks, the management of databases on optical discs and the applications created with HyperCard. In his opening address, Mike Spindler, Californian senior vice president of Apple Computer, has estimated that the company will reach, within the end of the year, a European turnover of $ 800 million, bringing to 27% the contribution of this old continent, to the total volume of the company’s turnover. According to the words of Spindler, the opening of the European market is materializing in various ways, most notably the strengthening of the production structures in Ireland, where recently$ 30 million have been invested. It should also be brought to the reader’s attention that there is the establishment of an independent research center in Paris and the fact that Apple has begun buying components in EEC countries: printed circuits in Spain and England, frames and plastic components in Germany.

Roberto Mazzoni