1. Admit it. You're out of the hardware game. Outsourcing your hardware production, or scrap it entirely, to compete more directly with Microsoft without the liability of manufacturing boxes.

2. License the Apple name/technology to appliance manufacturers and build GUIs for every possible device - from washing machines to telephones to WebTV. Have them all use the same communications protocol. Result: you monopolize the market for smart devices/homes.

3. Start pampering independent software vendors. Your future depends on strong, user-friendly software. ISVs are losing confidence and crossing over to the Dark Side to take advantage of Wintel's market share. Remember what happened to OS/2 - not enough applications, updates too late, scarce industry support. And all the marketing dollars IBM threw at it couldn't help.

4. Gil Amelio should steal a page from Lee Iacocca's book - work for one year without a salary, just to inspire the troops.

5. Straighten out the naming convention. Link model numbers to processor speed. When buying a 3400 laptop computer, what exactly, are you getting? Unless you study the brochures, you don't know how it compares with its competition. On the other hand, Wintel talks explicitly about processor speed. It's a Pentium 200-MHz box.

6. Apologize. You've let down many devoted users and did not deliver on the promise of the Macintosh platform.

7. Don't disappear from the retail chains. Rent space in a computer store, flood it with Apple products (especially software), staff it with Apple salespeople, and display everything like you're a living, breathing company and not a remote, dusty concept.

8. Buy a song. Last year, it would have been "Respect" by Aretha Franklin. This year, maybe it's "Ain't too Proud to Beg."

9. Fire the people who forecast product demand. In 1996, you had a million dollars in back orders for the PowerBook 1400, while the warehouses were full of unsold Performas.

10. Get a great image campaign. Let's get some branding (or rebranding) going on. Reproduce the "1984" spot with a 1997 accent.

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