ac08@vaxb.acs.unt.edu ((C. Irby)) (07/09/90)
In article <2354.269881d3@csc.anu.oz>, pfr654@csc.anu.oz writes: > Lots of posters to this and other Mac newsgroups are Mac evangelists > (including me). > > > Apple's advertising is good, but it has to be followed up by cheap macs. > > Suggestion: a cheap modular Mac, able to do colour, based on 68000 or > 68020: to compete head-on with clone makers. Gee- that's a heckuva idea... Especially since it's been the major thrust of rumors out of Apple for the last six months... And it's only been mentioned in this newsgroup a couple of hundred times in the last month... :) > *====*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===* > Phil Ryan > Canberra, Australia -- I get it! WE FORGOT TO TELL THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE!!! [Big :-)...] \ C Irby \ "The following will be a test of the ac08@vaxb.acs.unt.edu \ Emergency .Signature System. ac08@untvax \ This is only a test. \ Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep." \
pfr654@csc.anu.oz (07/09/90)
Lots of posters to this and other Mac newsgroups are Mac evangelists (including me). I think that unless Apple does something drastic, that the Mac will die (death by Windows). Mac sales are probably going through the floor right this minute! People with limited $$ (isn't everyone in this boat, from home users to corporations) will be buying a 'nice' interface for less money if they get a PC. These people are NEW COMPUTER USERS and don't know/understand or care about the finer details of lots of the discussion going on about win 3 vs Mac. Apple's advertising is good, but it has to be followed up by cheap macs. Suggestion: a cheap modular Mac, able to do colour, based on 68000 or 68020: to compete head-on with clone makers. *====*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===* Phil Ryan ANU Department of Physics and Theoretical Physics Canberra, Australia pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au phone:(61 6) 249 4678 fax:(61 6) 249 0741
jk3t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan King) (07/09/90)
pfr654@csc.anu.oz writes: > Lots of posters to this and other Mac newsgroups are Mac evangelists > (including me). > > I think that unless Apple does something drastic, that the Mac will die > (death by Windows). Mac sales are probably going through the floor right > this minute! Funny. I remember reading recently that the May sales of Macs were *up*, much to the surprise of analysts everywhere, and the price of Apple's stock has gone up about 10% since the Windows announcement. These are not generally accepted corporate death signs. Of course, the whole market could turn sour for them pretty quickly, as it has happened to others in the field, but I don't see any evidence for this now. > People with limited $$ (isn't everyone in this boat, from home users to > corporations) will be buying a 'nice' interface for less money if they get > a PC. These people are NEW COMPUTER USERS and don't know/understand or care > about the finer details of lots of the discussion going on about win 3 vs > Mac. Another funny thing is that most of the people I know who are raving about Windows are people who already own a pc. I'm sure Windows will sell plenty of machines, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the pcs sold to naive users are sold through dealers, where the potential savings are less than elsewhere because these first time buyers are, well, naive. > Apple's advertising is good, but it has to be followed up by cheap macs. > > Suggestion: a cheap modular Mac, able to do colour, based on 68000 or > 68020: to compete head-on with clone makers. Personally, I'd abandon the 68000 altogether if I were Apple. It will end up being such a royal pain trying to write innovative operating systems that will be useful on both 68000s and 68030s that I don't think Apple can stand to do it next time. > *====*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===*===* > Phil Ryan > ANU Department of Physics and Theoretical Physics > Canberra, Australia > pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au phone:(61 6) 249 4678 fax:(61 6) 249 0741 jking
hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edu (David Hairston) (07/10/90)
[pfr654@csc.anu.oz writes:]
[] Lots of posters to this and other Mac newsgroups are Mac evangelists
[] (including me).
[]
[] I think that unless Apple does something drastic, that the Mac will die
[] (death by Windows). Mac sales are probably going through the floor right
[] this minute!
[]
[] People with limited $$ (isn't everyone in this boat, from home users to
[] corporations) will be buying a 'nice' interface for less money if they get
[] a PC. These people are NEW COMPUTER USERS and don't know/understand or
[] care about the finer details of lots of the discussion going on about
[] win 3 vs Mac.
I'm a macophile, doing my duty by convincing a few friends to go mac.
Only one has regretted it so far, he's a wanna-be programmer and finds
the mac OS very strange. I believe in time he'll come around. These
people had a common denominator: they could get macs at discount prices
on an expense account! The people I can't convince (like my neighbors)
have figured out that the IBM PC is the most popular computer, the
industry leader in such things, has the most software available and
now it's developed a new interface (Windows) which probably works better
than a mac (in their opinion). Besides, it's cheaper. I'm frustated,
it's hard to argue "you get what you pay for" when to them it seems
like they'll be getting a lot more for less bucks. Funny thing is
anyone who's tried a mac (and doesn't have to buy it) loves the way
it works. I think Apple has made a grave mistake in not making the
low-cost mac line available awhile back. This would serve one very
good purpose: get people hooked on the mac interface at affordable
prices. Color is also important (unfortunately, a market reality).
Apple needs to have the low-cost mac line compete head-to-head with
the PC clones running windows. They'll win such a war. I also
believe that most people understand that more bucks usually means
enhanced performance, so people using a low-cost mac could be
expected to get higher priced macs as circumstances warrant. For
now, Windows is a serious threat simply because it appeals to the
pocketbook ("the price is right"). To do the macs justice they need
a fighting chance. A 68000, color IIcx-style package would be just
the ticket (in my opinion) ...
-dave-
hairston@henry.ece.cmu.edubmwu@athena.mit.edu (Benson M. Wu) (07/12/90)
I have been following this subject for a while and just can't resist to put in my two cents. Please direct all flames by e-mail to me at bmwu@athena.mit.edu, not thorugh the net. I have no interest to cause another flame war after the Iran earthquake disaster. I can't agree with all the people who mention the need for a low cost mac to combat the clones. I think Apple is very short-sighted and is run to maximize short term (i.e. current or next quarter) profits. Realistically, all the new machines they put out after the MacII were incrementally better. None of them were real breakthroughs. Except maybe if you compare the IIfx to the original MacII (strictly my humble opinion). But they prices they charge is outrageous. Market share is extremely important. I think Apple is ignoring market share to its detriment. Just look at the Japanese economic invasion of the US market in the last 30 years. First they built radios and clocks. Their cost was lower. So what do the US manufacturers do? They moved to higher profit margin items such as black and white TV. In the meantime, the low cost foreign manufacturers achieved economy of scale because they have HUGE market share; their cost becomes even lower. As a result, their profit is higher and they can reinvest the profit for more R&D. What do these foreigner invest their R&D in? Of course, black and white television. Next thing you know, the US manufacturers say we better move to color television. The rest is history. One industry after another got toppled. However, there are successful US companies which fought and met the foreign challenges. Kodak, Xerox, Tektronix came to my mind. But they all slash prices to keep Market Share. Apple is doing none of this. In spite of what we say about the superiority of Mac's, IBM PC clones outnumber Mac's 7 to 1. Does the story of VHS vs Beta sound familiar? Superior technology or user interface does not mean much when it comes to the bottom line. If I were an Apple board member, I would fire John Sculley for incompetent management. Running a computer company is different from running Pepsi. lastly, I offer the following story for everybody's amusement. A friend of mine works at Motorola. He me that Apple was considering using the 96001 floating point DSP processor in the next generation of Mac's. Apple actually gave Motorola hard deadlines for making presentations and stuff. However, after 3 months of intensive works, the Motorola staff was totally demoralized when Apple told them their chief of the project doesn't know enough technical details/requiements to evaluate the Motorola presentation and have to delay their decision. Seriously, it's time they get some engineers who know what they are doing to make these technical decisions. Running a company is not the same thing as working on a spreadsheet to slash cost. ( I have deliberately try to be vague about this story due to its still sensitive nature). All I can say is that in my humble opinon, Apple R&D's team leaders are not the world's most impressive technical whizes and have been doing a pretty lousy jobs. This fact plus the outragious pricing will put the Mac out of business. Sad. By the way, is Apple really serious when it prices the personal LaserwriteIIsc for $2000. In its press release, it actually said it is designed for personal use by students. How many students out there have $2000 to blow on a printer? Come on, it's not even postscript. Sorry for the rambling. Benson Wu bmwu@athena.mit.edu