EWorld

eWorld was a short-lived internet service provider offered by Apple Computer for Apple Macintosh users, that lasted only from June 1994 through March 1996.

= History =

In the early 1990s online services were becoming widely popular, just as Apple was looking into replacing their aging online service known as AppleLink. AppleLink had originally been developed at the urging John Ebbs, Apple s head of support, who convinced the management that they could lower support costs using an online service. AppleLink had initially been available only to dealers when it launched in 1985, but was later opened to developers and became the de-facto internal e-mail service within Apple.

The downside was that the service cost a lot to run. The back end was hosted by GE Information Services who charged Apple about $300,000 a year, as well as charging the end users up to $15 for daytime access to the system. Apple had tried to negotiate a better rate on several occasions, but GE knew that switching would cost Apple even more, and refused to lower the costs.

So Apple went ahead and started to switch anyway. Before the advent of eWorld, Apple had started a consumer-oriented online support service known as AppleLink Personal Edition. Related to the older system in name only, this service was run by Quantum Computer Services, who earlier had established the Q-Link online service for the Commodore 64 personal computer. Quantum s Steve Case moved to California for three months to convince Apple to let Quantum run their new consumer service. In 1987 Apple allowed Quantum to run the service and granted them use of the Apple logo. Apple received a 10 percent royalty for all the system s users while Quantum generated revenue by running the service.

The ideologies of the companies soon clashed. Quantum wanted to bundle the AppleLink software with new Macs and distribute it through direct marketing. At the time Apple didn t believe in giving away non-system software for free. That, coupled with Apple s strict design guidelines, caused Quantum to eventually terminate their contract. Steve Case had, however, negotiated a rather beneficial contract, granting Quantum rights to the use of the Apple logo and preventing Apple from marketing its own online service.

In 1991 Quantum renamed themselves America Online and opened their service up to personal computer and Macintosh users. Apple wanted out of their contract with GE, which was costing them far more money than it was saving, and wanted to provide their own Mac-only competition to AOL s service. They canceled their GE contract and formed an Online Services Group. The group licensed the original AppleLink Personal Edition software from AOL and developed into what would be known as eWorld. The group also struck a deal with AOL to help develop the service and spent 1993 working on the new software and various services to be offered.

= eWorld =

On January 5, 1994, Apple announced eWorld at Apple Fest. On June 20 of that year the service went into full operation. The eWorld service was a combination of the vast technical and support archives of the previous AppleLink services and a more traditional community service like AOL and CompuServe. The primary portal of the service was the eWorld software. The software was based around a town hall theme where each of the services branches were individual buildings . The Software was Mac-only but a Microsoft Windows version was promised to appear in 1995.

The town hall metaphor made eWorld simple to access and provided users with a strong sense of community. Several Mac software and hardware companies opened up virtual forums on the service to provide customer support and general product information to subscribers. The main eWorld portal also linked up to various news services.

The two most widely used parts of eWorld were the eMail Center and Community Center. The Community Center was an online bulletin board system where thousands of ePeople (eWorld users) congregated to chat about various subjects. The eMail Center was a virtual post office and provided most ePeople with their first ever exposure to e-mail. The service also housed reams of support and technical documents.

= eWorld Web Browser =

The eWorld Web Browser was an application separate to the main eWorld program which let users browse web pages on Internet WWW websites. The browser had features for FTP uploading, web images and settings to configure a default homepage address. The eWorld Web Browser only ran on the Mac OS, and only worked with the eWorld Internet Service.

= Demise =

It turned out that eWorld was launched as the heyday of proprietary online services was ending due to the spread of Internet access.

The service cost $8.95 per month, which included two free nighttime or weekend hours. Subsequent hours were $4.95 with weekday (6 am - 6 pm) hours costing $7.95. Apple kept the price high originally to keep the demand moderated but never dropped the price when the demand didn t materialize. After the first year of service eWorld had 90,000 subscribers. In 1995 limited Internet service was made available and as of September 1995 the service only had 115,000 subscribers, compared to AOL s 3.5 million.

Apple s marketing and promotion efforts were at best indifferent. The service was only available on the Macintosh, along with e-mail only support on the Apple Newton handheld. CEO Michael Spindler ( The Diesel ) told the Online Services Group marketing for the service wasn t needed and so it shipped on new Macs buried five folders deep. There was also little if anything in the way of media marketing for the service. A majority of Mac users had no idea eWorld even existed and little noise was made in the Mac press over the service. The promised Windows version of eWorld never materialized.

Apple s management decided that the product was doomed to fail in a market where AOL had such a commanding lead. The company was also trying desperately to cut costs. In June 1995, the company had over $1 billion in backorders and posted a $68 million loss in the fourth quarter of 1995. In January 1996, Spindler was asked to resign as CEO, replaced by former CEO of National Semiconductor Gil Amelio. Several products and projects were scrapped in an effort to put the company back into the black.

Finally, on .

= External Links =

*[http://www.vanvr.com/eworld/ The Unofficial eWorld Farewell Web Site] *[http://mlagazine.com/modules.phpop=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=89 eWorld History]