Newer Technology To Shut Doors [Updated]

by , 6:30 PM EST, December 29th, 2000

The ultra-difficult Macintosh upgrade market has claimed another victim. Newer Technology has announced that the company will cease operation and, pending shareholder approval, file for bankruptcy sometime after the 1st of the year.

Newer, Sonnet, XLR8, and PowerLogix had been the surviving upgrade card manufacturers after MacTell closed their doors in 1999. The upgrade market, particularly for the Mac platform, has always been a difficult business. However, the events of the last year have certainly made an already tricky situation even more difficult. Apple's inability to ship computers at higher clock speeds has impacted the upgrade market as well, leaving very little room for newer users to upgrade, and very little motivation for older users to do the same. Many of the same factors that have led to Apple's slower than expected computer sales have also hit the upgrade makers hard, particularly Newer.

MacCentral is reporting in an excellent piece by Brad Gibson that all but a handful of Newer employees were laid off last week, and the plan of action from here is to be decided at a January 8th shareholders' meeting.

You can also find some very interesting behind the scenes reading from the folks at MacCPU. Bob Moriarty has written a piece describing his dealings with Newer Technology when MacCPU was in the upgrade reselling market.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Another factor in the plight of upgrade manufacturers is Apple's unwillingness to support those companies. It is in Apple's best interest for users to purchase a new Mac, rather than throw an upgrade card into an old one. Thus, Apple has made moves over the last few years to alienate the upgrade manufacturers. Most notably was the removal of the "mezzanine slot" from the original iMac, and the Blue & White G3 ROM block, making it difficult for either of those products to be upgraded. However, companies such as Newer, with substantial R&D budgets, always overcame those obstacles.

Add to this the problems with Motorola's G4 production. The upgrade cycle has always been a big part of the business model for companies like Newer Technology as many Mac users (and PC users too) preferred to upgrade their old Macs than to buy new ones. We all want the latest-greatest processor, but we want it in the machine we bought last year. Who could blame us? The problem is that there is little difference between the machines of 2 and 3 years ago, and today's fastest machines. There is simply not enough reason to bother upgrading your old Blue & White, as it were. Indeed, much of the expansion of the of the Mac upgrade industry was fueled by people wanting to upgrade their clones. That is a mostly saturated market at this point.

During the last 2 years, we have seen a major effort from the more prescient upgrade companies to shift into new markets, especially the USB and FireWire peripheral markets. It would appear that Newer was having problems making such a shift. That's too bad as Newer Technology was a company known for its quality products. We wish the employees of Newer the best of luck in their next endeavors.

Newer Technology