pff@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Pablo Fernicola) (02/07/90)
Did somebody already post a reason why the SE can not be used as the low cost, entry level Mac, and I missed it? :-) Let's see what the SE has going for it: - It works - The assembly line is already set up for it. - The manuals are ready. - The investment in development has probably already been paid off. - No further design is needed. - It comes with a monitor. This sounds good to me! How can Apple justify spending money to develop a machine that will be basically identically to the SE (or Plus). What can they leave out, the expansion bus? the disk drive? the mouse? the memory slots? :-) Come on let's get real. BTW, the Plus can be bought through University discount by less than $1000.00, since I don't think that Apple sells the machines at a loss and given the fact that the SE is cheaper to manufacture than the Plus, there is no reason why the SE couldn't be sold under $1000.00. (I said this even though I own an SE and it's resale value would go down). -- pff@beach.cis.ufl.edu - Pablo Fernicola - Machine Intelligence Laboratory - UF IF YOU CARE ENOUGH TO READ SIGNATURES ... I am graduating Spring 1990 and I am looking for a job. MS EE, my graduate work incorporates OO-DBMS/Graphics/Robotics/AI
jimvons@ashtate (Jim von Schmacht) (02/08/90)
One reason:
The new machine will be cheaper to MAKE, reducing Apple's cost, and hence
our cost as well. You don't very often see a 1987 Celica replacing a 1990
Corolla....
--
Jim von Schmacht Senior Member, Project Test Staff Ashton Tate Corporation
Disclaimer: Standard Issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It isn't the years - it's the mileage" -Indiana Jonescaptkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde) (02/09/90)
In article <817@ashton.UUCP>, jimvons@ashtate (Jim von Schmacht) writes: > The new machine will be cheaper to MAKE, reducing Apple's cost, and hence > our cost as well. You don't very often see a 1987 Celica replacing a 1990 > Corolla.... Cheaper? How much cheaper? It was my understanding that the SE is already *incredibly* cheap to make: $150-200, even cheaper than the plus, because of the use of DFM (design-for-manufacturing). Now, consider this: a) A *complete* redesign is likely to be necessary (as well as substantial assembly-line level changes) in order to bring down the cost of the machine significantly. The redesign is bound to be *costly*, and thus I question the wisdom of that, especially considering the piss-poor performance (in a relative sense) of Apple's low-end lately. I mean, it is serious bucks to redesign the whole machine to shave off probably no more than $50-100 on the production costs, and have a short product life (a machine with just a 68K on board will probably die as a product by late '91, early '92, IMHO). b) Apple needs to release a low-cost Mac *NOW* (actually, six months ago, IMHO). The longer Apple waits to release the low-cost Mac, the shorter the life of the product and the lesser the impact it will have on the marketplace. Based on those two, I think Apple should just drop the plus completely and slash the price of the SE so as to make street price about ~$1000 (what the plus's is right now). Max return on investment... The other thing, the SE already has an Apple-approved upgrade path to 030, so these users won't be left out in the cold. -Ivanski "Y aprendo mucho... Y no aprendo nada... Maestra vida, camara', te da, te quita, te quita y te da." -Ruben Blades, "Maestra Vida" Internet: captkidd@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
francis@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) (02/10/90)
In article <1990Feb9.152805.13494@athena.mit.edu> Ivan Cavero Belaunde <captkidd@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> writes: >...It was my understanding that the SE is >already *incredibly* cheap to make: $150-20... >Based on those two, I think Apple should just drop the plus completely and >slash the price of the SE so as to make street price about ~$1000 (what the >plus's is right now). Max return on investment... The other thing, the SE >already has an Apple-approved upgrade path to 030, so these users won't >be left out in the cold. Actually, this may well be part of the problem. If you drop the price of the SE, and leave the price of the SE->SE30 upgrade the same, buying and upgrading an SE would end up being cheaper than buying an SE30 outright. If you jack up the cost of the upgrade, then Apple gets accused of being bastards. In essence, they would have to drop the plus altogether, and drop the price of the SE AND SE30 significantly. Then, there is the fact that the SE30 has about the same power level as a IIx/cx; if it drops a lot, that could have negative effects on II_ sales. Now, what does this tell us? Maybe that the whole line is overpriced, or maybe just that there is an extreme premium on making external monitors readily available and/or Apple is being really great guys making the SE-SE30 upgrade so cheap. I don't work for Apple, nor do I have access to their financial info., so I can't say for certain, but I know where my opinion tends to lie :-) -- R David Francis francis@cis.ohio-state.edu