SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (03/21/89)
>Regardless of where the media tripe comes from, DON'T BELIEVE IT FOR >AN INSTANT!!!!! We aren't supposed to talk about future products, >but if you guys knew what was coming down the pike for the Apple II world, >all this conversation would quickly end. It's Apple's own fault. I understand that too much talk about wonderful future products can kill the sales of present products, but the complete absence of talk about future direction can be nearly as deadly. Didn't John Sculley give an interview talking about developing a Mac for the 68020 (and 68030) processors in 1986!? Didn't Sculley promise data I/O compatibility with the MS-DOS file format more than two years ago? Point is when the business market complained about the Mac's limitations, Apple didn't seem reticent about discussing plans to upgrade. Even though Apple took some time making up their own minds about whether there would ever be an "Apple IIx" (became the IIgs), rumors (that turned out not to be wholly inaccurate) were abroad as early as April 1984. Seems to me the SE-030 in pretty much the announced form was rumored even before the Mac IIx made it's debut. In fact, wasn't it nearly a year ago that Sculley announced 1989 would be Apple's "year of the CPU?" IBM's PS/2 didn't take the World by surprise (and neither have any of Big Blue's more recent offerings - the 50Z, the 30-286, the portable Model 70), and the Amiga was on the cover of at least one hobbiest magazine the year before it was shipped. If Apple IS planning something ** exciting ** (REALLY EXCITING) for May (or even September) AppleFest, then it's high time they met the marketing challenge of "leaking" a few clues without clobbering the current market. If nothing interesting is in the works for '89, then I'd read your hint about "...what's coming down the pike for the Apple II" as so much bafflegab (there is ALWAYS the greatest, most golly-gee-whiz new computer about to be released "sometime soon"). At the rate Apple's moving, the same money'll buy a Motorola 88000 box or an 80486 CPU with an i860 coprocessor (maybe a slightly used Cray :-) byt the time "something comes down the pike....." Murph Sewall Vaporware? ---> [Gary Larson returns 1/1/90] Prof. of Marketing Sewall@UConnVM.BITNET Business School sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu [INTERNET] U of Connecticut {psuvax1 or mcvax }!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL [UUCP] -+- I don't speak for my employer, though I frequently wish that I could (subject to change without notice; void where prohibited) According to the American Facsimile Association, more than half the calls from Japan to the U.S. are fax calls. FAX it to me at: 1-203-486-5246