ward@hao.UUCP (09/19/84)
[and gives its customers the shaft]
Hooray for Mike Conley for telling it like it is. Except that
he was a little to kind. He forgot to mention that if we had
all waited just a few months we could have saved ourselves some
big bucks. Here's a little arithmetic: right now I can buy
a 128K Mac for $2,000. That's a $500 discount from list. Apple
has dropped the price (effective someday) by $300. That means
we can expect to see the 128K Mac (the Tiny Mac?) (The inadequate
Mac?) selling for $1700. Add a thousand to that and you get
$2700. That's what I expect to see the Fat Mac selling for real
soon now. That's $200 more than I paid for my Meager Mac. That's
a hell of a lot of depreciation to see in just a few months,
just a few months after the product is released.
Just think how Apple would be doing right now if everybody had
been smart and played it safe. If everybody had realized the
truth - that Apple is just another greedy, screw the customer
corporation. (Even IBM does better - they put the screws to
their business partners. Apple does it to their custumers)
If everbody had played wait and see (like the folks who Apple
is now rewarding), Apple would be in deep trouble right now.
Considering that, before the Mac, the only thing decent thing
they produced was little more than a toy, and that they have
produced failure after failure - if the Mac had not sold well
that company would now be worth zip! And we who took Apple on
faith (the software will be out next month, next month, next
month), who believed that Apple was a little different have been
thanked in a very nice manner: "You've been stupid enough to
cough up the bucks so far - so why not be real stupid and cough
up some more".
Damn you Steve Jobs.
P.S. I've called Apple ((408) 996-1010), have you? I was rude.
P.P.S. What do you think of a guy who starts out robbing the phone company
and ends up robbing his customers?
P.P.P.S. Is anybody going to be stupid enough to buy a Fat Mac
at $3100?
--
Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD
UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!ward
ARPA: hplabs!hao!sa!ward@Berkeley
BELL: 303-497-1252
USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) (09/20/84)
Seems to me the loud complaints are coming from the people who were too foolish to buy the computer they needed. I too thought the Macintosh was cute but I couldn't figure out any way to justify buying one. If a dozen good graphics adventures are marketed for the "Fat Mac" I might buy one. Otherwise, it is clearly targeted as a desktop accessory for the executive, not as a hobbyist or home machine. We all heard similar complaints when people jumped on the home computer bandwagon and bought some other machine that they had no justifiable use for, including Apple IIs. It is not the fault of the manufacturer that the computer does not meet your needs, although it might be the fault of the salesmen. I find it hard to believe that Apple's mainstay is currently the Macintosh. Does anyone have accurate accounting figures on the various Apple products?
ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (09/20/84)
[]
Unfortunately, the computer I need costs >$15K. I was foolish
enough to think that the Mac would come close without waiting
to see what it could really do. It now looks like the Fat Mac
will come close to being what is needed, but because I paid list
price early, I can't afford it.
--
Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD
UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!ward
ARPA: hplabs!hao!sa!ward@Berkeley
BELL: 303-497-1252
USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307ag4@pucc-h (Jeff Lewis) (09/24/84)
I worked at a highly successful computer store for about 6 weeks this
summer (a mistake I'll never make again -- I can't stand working in sales)
that had a national account agreement with Apple. Hasn't anybody heard of
the Apple //c? When I was still there, it was way outselling the Mac.
But it's being marketed at the non-business, non-computer-hacker crowd,
so maybe you just didn't think about it...
--
Jeff Lewis
{decvax|ucbvax|allegra|seismo|harpo|teklabs|ihnp4}!pur-ee!lewie