High-tech companies as a whole have suffered grievously in 2000 -- one glance at the NASDAQ's bungee jump since March demonstrates that -- but Apple's recent revenue and stock troubles are as specific to its products as they are general to its industry.

The theoretically tremendous performance advantages of the Mac's PowerPC processors haven't really panned out. Most objective tests show that today's best PC processors -- such as AMD's Athlon chip, running at 1 gigahertz or faster -- easily outrun today's 500-megahertz PowerPC G4.

There's some reason to believe Apple is aware of this problem and is acknowledging it by way of its current designs. Why, for instance, did Apple CEO Steve Jobs authorize, develop and introduce a dual-processor G4 Macintosh without even raising prices? Many observers consider that move an acknowledgment that PowerPC performance has been stagnant compared with blistering competitors, such as the Athlon. Unfortunately, the current Mac OS largely ignores the possible benefits of running two processors, so the performance advantage is completely unnoticeable to the average user.

But performance isn't the only thing Mac designers should be thinking of. Despite the charm of the Mac's smoothly integrated hardware-software combination and the Mac OS's many subtle conveniences, businesses and consumers ultimately want the large software library available for the PC.

Consumers want games, but games usually come out a year later for the Mac than for the PC -- if they come out at all. Business applications are increasingly Windows only. Microsoft Office for the Mac is a special case, a suite of products so essential to the Mac's ongoing survival that many doubt Apple could survive if Microsoft decided to kill it.

Dire times call for bold solutions. It may seem unimaginable, but consider what would happen if Apple were to drop the PowerPC and build a Macintosh around an Athlon chip.

Apple's computers would for the first time be able to run Windows applications -- even Windows 2000 -- at native speeds, ending forever the argument that the Mac is incompatible with the rest of the world. Suddenly, the Mac would be a serious solution for everyone, since it would be the most universally compatible computer on the planet.

The Free Software Project
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