Power Computing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Power Computing was a short-lived manufacturer of Apple Macintosh-compatible computers. Some of its senior management, including president and chief operating officer Joel Kocher, had worked at Dell Computer, and, like Dell, it followed a direct, build-to-order sales model. The company's founding engineering team was comprised of former Apple Computer employees from the Power Macintosh design team.
Based in Cupertino, California with manufacturing facilities in Austin, Texas and founded by Steve Kahng with $13 million, Power Computing entered the market in 1995 with a series of machines based on the PowerPC 601 microprocessor. In all, PowerComputing released 8 different lines of Mac-compatible computers from 1995 to 1997. The computers were less expensive than competing offerings from Apple Computer and were often faster. Its quarterly sales grew from $21.5 million in its first quarter to a peak of $98.5 million in Q4 1996.
As Apple's fortunes fell, Power Computing's fell as well. Apple started demanding higher royalties from Power and other clone makers, especially for higher powered models. This combined with inventory problems to cause Power Computing to sustain heavy operating losses during most of 1997, after two years of explosive growth. In an effort to reduce its dependence on Mac clone sales, Power Computing announced plans in the summer of 1997 to release a line of IBM compatible computers as well. Later that summer, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he announced an end to the Mac clone business. Apple bought Power Computing's Mac license and related assets in September 1997 for $100 million in stock. Following the sale, Power Computing was hit with lawsuits from its suppliers and exited the PC clone business after only a month. The company went out of business soon after.
Power Computing's web site's final design had the text "We lost our license for speeding" featured prominently on the main page.
The company officially went out of business December 31, 1997. Their last campus, holding all but their manufacturing facility, was in a former Wal-Mart building at 2555 N. IH-35 in Round Rock, TX. The manufacturing floor was up the road from that building, sharing space in the Westinghouse Building. The sales, accounting, customer service, and technical support departments used to be housed in the Westinghouse building, but were moved to "PowerMart" due to carbon dioxide leakage.
President Joel Kocher distributed alpine camo pants to every employee which had to be worn every Friday in solidarity to "Fight Back for the Mac." The company had rallies and pep-type gatherings to rev up the employees, many of whom worked at PCC to support the Mac OS.
