Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jm7e+ From: jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: More about Apple Inc. Message-ID: Date: 17 Oct 90 01:01:12 GMT References: <12630076332007@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, <14161@smoke.BRL.MIL> Organization: Computing Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 82 In-Reply-To: <14161@smoke.BRL.MIL> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.apple2: 16-Oct-90 Re: More about Apple Inc. Doug Gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (437) > In article <12630076332007@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu> > ZATEZALO-S@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Shane Z) writes: > - At the end of January, Mr. Sculley, a career marketeer with no engineering > -training, became Apple's chief technical officer, taking the company's > -research and development organization, with its more than $400 million annual > -budget, under his wing. > And there you have, in a nutshell, what is killing American industry. Agreed. Sculley is attempting to sell Macintoshes like he sold Pepsi and Potato Chips while he worked at PespsiCo (read Sculley's book, Odyssey... very enlightening)... and here is the magic formula.... Keep the public coming back for more by packaging essentially the same product in ever-new ways. What is new about the 3 new macs? Nothing but packaging!!! The guts are the same, if not actually less than the original!! The Mac LC is a Mac // in a new package minus the math co-processor and a compatible slot. And I don't know what is special about the Mac //si at all... at 20 MHz, it is not a performer like the //ci, and doesn't compare to the screaming //f. But the latter is $10,000... more a token product than something to be sold. This all but reminds me of American car companies during the 70's, where the body style might change some, but the engine and works would stay the same as they were in the 60's. Even after the Japanese had introduced so many excellent new, small, economical cars in the late 70's, the Big Three kept putting out gas-guzzlers with the same engines as before (I remember Chrysler hawking huge Cordobas during the worst of the Gas Crunch)... partly because it was cheaper to use the same old engine design, like the venerable GM 350 V8, than to design and build a new one. But the American consumer is smarter than that, and the Computer Customer is even smarter. We know to look under the hood and ask for specs. Further, Computer Customers are not "consumers" in the traditional sense. They do not buy a product, use it, discard it and buy another one. Soft drinks are consumer items. Computers are not. They are too expensive and too important to be so trivially acquired and discarded like Pepsi cans. Unfortunately, the Automobile industry thrives on the soft-drink principle, trusting that cars will have a lifetime of about 5 years before "consumers" get rid of them and buy another one. But it is not a fruitful marketing principle, certainly not in the long run, and the Japanese and the Germans have proved this by working reeeel hard to capture and KEEP the American market with long-lasting products and commendable service and dealerships. And they didn't do so with protectionism either. What makes a Mac a Mac is its interface, and Apple is suing everyone who threatens that monopoly by using the "look and feel" of a desktop environment. I understand they even claim rights to overlapping windows (making X windows illegal!). To me, this means that Apple doesn't have the creative power and drive they once had, and must rest on previous accomplishments to get them through today. Millions of dollars wasted on legal fees when they could be going toward new ideas. Apple will learn that short-term marketing will kill them. Or they will get killed. I think Sculley is part of the older generation that focuses on sales rather than product. This is why he repackages old technology into a new box and expects Apple stock to go back up. But no matter how you slice it, it's still that same mac, and there isn't anything new inside. Sculley is wasting talent and resources on this fiasco that should go into innovation and new technology. The NeXT is innovative, and less expensive than Apple dares to go. The IBM RS6000 is the fastest floating-point workstation on the market, and all Digital's desktop computers and expansion modules are packaged in the same white box (just a different nameplate). Computer users know the difference between fluff and substance. This is why Apple is doomed to go downhill (watch those stocks, guys). You can't sell computers like soda and snack food. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |Jeremy Mereness | Support | Ye Olde Disclaimer: | |jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (internet) | Free | The above represent my| |a700jm7e@cmccvb (Vax... bitnet) | Software| opinions, alone. | |staff/student@Carnegie Mellon U.| | Ya Gotta Love It. | -----------------------------------------------------------------------