Editing AppleLink (section)

== Demise ==

Quantum retained rights to the AppleLink Personal Edition software, and released a version for both the Mac and [[Microsoft Windows]] machines in 1989, calling the new service [[America Online]] as Apple owned the AppleLink name. In 1991 the service had grown substantially, and the company was renamed as America Online Inc. The original AOL Macintosh software still retained within it vestiges of its GEIS/AppleLink heritage. It was not lost on GEIS engineers that it included a version of their proprietary EF3 protocol which was never Apple's intellectual property to share with Quantum. It was handed over anyway as part of the Macintosh source code, thanks to [[John Sculley]], Apple's CEO at the time. Although no legal action was ever pursued, this further soured the technical relationship between GEIS and Apple in the final years of AppleLink, especially since by then AOL was competing with GEIS' own consumer service, [[GEnie]]. As a result, when GEIS developed the improved EFX and upgraded AppleLink, it never released source code to Apple, supplying only a copyrighted code-resource for the protocol.

Apple, encouraged by AOL's success and still wanting to turn the cost of AppleLink into a profit center, decided to re-enter the market. After a months-long [[Request for Proposal|RFP]] process that included GEIS as an unsuccessful bidder, Apple approached AOL at the end of 1992 to host a private-label system known as [[eWorld]]. By this time AOL had grown to be both much larger than GEIS, so all AppleLink content was to be moved over as well, allowing the GEIS service to be shut down. The eWorld software was basically a version of the original AOL software with custom graphics, giving it a distinctive look. The system was ready for launch in mid-1994.

However, by this point the rapid rise of the [[Internet]] was generally killing off all smaller [[online service]]s and [[bulletin board systems]], and online systems were generally seen as antiquated. Apple was never able to turn a profit on eWorld, and shut it down after a little over a year of operation, before it was able to supplant AppleLink. Subsequently, Apple moved all of its services and replaced all of the AppleLink content. The first step involved a site within AOL's Computing Channel at keyword "Apple". Later, this site was shut down and replaced with website addressed by subdomains under apple.com. The AppleLink service itself was finally shut down at the end of March 1997.

AppleLink's server machines (not the GEIS mainframes) were named for various famous musical composers: [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Aaron Copland|Copland]], [[John Lennon|Lennon]], etc.