Why did HyperCard wither away? [was: Re: Why is Konfabulator 'Pretty?']

simplsol at aol.com simplsol at aol.com
Sat Dec 10 12:08:50 EST 2005


Bill,
 Thank you for the fresh, insider perspective.
  I've used HC since it came out in 1987, believe I've read every book 
on the subject, and never heard it put this way. Thank you again for 
sharing it with us.
 Paul Looney

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Bill Marriott <wjm at wjm.org>
 To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
 Sent: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 21:13:05 -0500
  Subject: Why did HyperCard wither away? [was: Re: Why is Konfabulator 
'Pretty?']

 Well, I had the good fortune to be at Claris during the HyperCard
  transition. I knew the development team and the product managers well. 
I
 don't think it was anything so deliberate/nefarious as you surmise.

  - Claris didn't know how to make money on a program that had been 
given away
  for free. The demotion of the "free" HyperCard to a "player" and 
starting to
 charge for the full version ended up upsetting/alienating a lot of
 customers.

  - In those days, there was free, unlimited, "red carpet" technical 
support.
  You could call in with just about any question and the support group 
would
  go to the ends of the earth to solve it for you. (This included 
writing
  scripts and debugging stacks.) With everyone from commercial 
developers to
  11th graders calling in, HyperCard became one of the most expensive 
products
 to support, surpassing even FileMaker Pro.

  - Key members of the Apple team that built HyperCard declined to move 
to
 Claris and the product just wasn't upgraded quickly enough or smartly
  enough. It took forever to get their act together under the 
reorganization
  chaos. Not enough features were added, and the ones that were often 
were not
 done in a way that pleased customers.

  - No one knew how to position it within the Claris product line. 
FileMaker
  was also the chief moneymaker, and there was some question why someone 
would
  use FileMaker if HyperCard was able to do the same things (easy 
reports, for
  example). There was actually a lot of contention for a while whether 
to use
 HyperCard or FileMaker as the engine for the technical knowledgebase
 (FileMaker won).

 - As a producer of software primarily targeted at consumers and small
 businesses, Claris didn't have the depth of experience to create a
 developer-oriented tool.

 - The HyperCard team tended not to integrate well with the rest of the
  company. They didn't eat lunch at the same tables. :) I think this 
prevented
 a lot of discussion, crossover ideas, and innovative thinking from
 occurring.

  - HyperCard was not making a profit; there were therefore no 
substantial
  funds for marketing it. Combined with all the other factors above, 
other
 companies (like SuperCard) stepped in and started to compete for the
 HyperCard audience. Market share of HyperCard fell dramatically.

 After HyperCard went back to Apple there may have been some additional
 machinations that I'm not aware of. However,

  1) The Claris spinout was the beginning of the end for HyperCard as 
far as
  I'm concerned. It's not that Claris was a bad company (quite the 
opposite);
  it's just that insufficient strategic consideration was given to how 
it
 would grow there, and it probably should never have left Apple anyway.

  2) I never once at Claris heard the notion that HyperCard stacks 
reflected
 poorly on the image of the Macintosh. Quite the opposite.

  3) No one -- except a few crazies no one listened to -- saw the 
potential
  for HyperCard to impact the Web (and vice versa). "So close yet so 
far."
 (sigh.) HyperCard's paradigm was mired in floppy-disk distribution of
 stacks... a bandwidth-friendly, streaming, component-ized, multi-user,
  client-server world was simply not envisioned. By 1993/1994 the Web 
was
 clearly "the next big thing" and HyperCard missed the boat.

 Bill

 "Mark Swindell" <mswindel at santacruz.k12.ca.us>
 wrote in message
 news:2e1610f5ac8c751d31ec1db2600dc2c7 at santacruz.k12.ca.us...
  >I think they were ok with HyperCard staying a fun toy for amateurs, 
but
  >they didn't want to blur the line by giving it full-blown 
professional UI
  >potential. Then their platform would have been populated by 
half-baked
  >applications that worked poorly but which could have appeared 
superficially
  >to have been produced by professionals and would have helped define 
the Mac
 >"experience" as amateurish. That would have been bad for business and
 >their reputation.
 >
  > DTP programs used the computer to produce docs, for good or bad, but 
they
  > "weren't" the computer in the same way a Hypercard stack "became" 
the
  > computer while it was in use. Same for web pages, later on. They 
were
 > documents, not applications.
 >
 > Mark
 >
 > On Dec 9, 2005, at 3:03 PM, Bill Marriott wrote:
 >
  >> You mean, like how they abandoned desktop publishing because of all 
the
  >> horrid newsletters that sprung into existence? And how the web 
never took
 >> off because of all the ugly sites? :)
 >>
 >> Bill
 >>
 >> "Mark Swindell"
 >> <mswindel at santacruz.k12.ca.us>
 >> wrote in message
 >> news:3e8f7badaa4353e28739d750b1cd8224 at santacruz.k12.ca.us...
  >>> HC's rep was so tarnished by all the unsightly crap put out there 
by
 >>> "the
 >>> rest of us" that they didn't want it associated in any professional
  >>> context with their upscale brand identity. Sure, there were 
nuggets of
  >>> gold among the piles of HyperCard coal, but even they were covered 
in
 >>> black (and white) dust and hard to find.
 >>> -Mark
 >
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