Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!timbuk!cs.umn.edu!ub.d.umn.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!argentina From: rankins@argentina (raymond r rankins) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: More about Apple Inc. Message-ID: <12823@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 17 Oct 90 12:06:07 GMT References: <12630076332007@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, <14161@smoke.BRL.MIL> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: rankins@argentina (raymond r rankins) Organization: Replace me with your organization Lines: 64 In-reply-to: jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) In article , jm7e+@andrew (Jeremy G. Mereness) writes: >...... >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........ I'm not so sure computer customers are very smart consumers. If they are, then why are they always so ready dump what they've got to buy whatever is being pushed as the latest/greatest/fastest/most powerful. I can't beleive the amount of computer hardware that is just "discarded" here where I work. IBM AT's and Mac Plus's are sitting around gathering dust because everyone had to have 386 PC's and Mac II's when they came out. If we really shopped smart when we bought our Apple IIGS's, how come so many of us (not me!) are ready now to just discard them to buy an Amiga or whatever. Did some of us purchase our IIGS's trivially? (personally, I did a lot of research and thought long and hard before purchasing my IIGS, and I'm still happy with my decision) I know a woman in the local user group I belong to who's selling her IIe to buy a Mac LC with IIe card. Why? Because "that's the way it looks like things are going". This from someone who didn't thing upgrading to a IIGS was worth it. Well, it looks like Apple finally duped this consumer with their marketing strategy. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I don't think that the average computer buyer is any more smarter a consumer than anyone else. I think some of us in the computing business are smarter and able to look beyond the hype, to examine the specs under a microscope, but most computer customers are not. They beleive what they hear, and most of what they hear is marketing hype. I know, I used to work in a computer store. Most of the customers were very ignorant of what they were buying, and would beleive whatever you told them. These were not smart, informed consumers. (for the record, I never misled any customer into buying something that was wrong for them. That's probably why my hardware sales were not very high :^) >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. I agree with this. What has kept Apple going as well as it has so far has been strong product loyalty to a great product and innovation, not low prices. They were able to sell their product to a customer and keep him coming back because that customer beleived in Apple. Apple would never let him down. Now that they have abandoned this base of consumers, they have set themselves up for a fall. They may sway a number of less informed computer buyers to their "new" Macs, but what's to keep these people from abandoning the Mac for the next latest/greatest/fastest/most powerful computer to come down the line. Ray Ray Rankins |(518) 387-7174 | INTERNET: rankins@argentina.crd.ge.com 2 Moonglow Rd. |(518) 583-3320 | COMPUSERVE: 71131,3236 Gansevoort, NY 12831 | | AmericaOnline: RayRankins | GEnie: R.Rankins