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From: wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: The future of the past mac
Keywords: obsolescence
Message-ID: <1990Nov11.114837.26676@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 11 Nov 90 11:48:37 GMT
References: <11390.273bec86@ecs.umass.edu> <273C9EE2.28338@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Lines: 99

In article <273C9EE2.28338@orion.oac.uci.edu> rbarris@orion.oac.uci.edu (Robert C. Barris) writes:
>>
>> [individual complains about Apple's treatment of its installed base]
>
>   Your perception of how Apple treats its customers who have bought older
>machines is grossly inaccurate. Apple has made the biggest push I've yet
>seen to keep the old machines alive (at least, back down to the Plus).

I'd say this assessment is true of almost any company; it just makes common
sense. Would you completely disregard your installed base with the introduction
of a new machine? You will note, however, that sometimes serious engineering
kludges are performed to achieve this. Both this and the fact that certain
advances are witheld (for the simple reason of backward compatability) has
been the subject of many heated discussions about Apple's future. One should
think about these issues with the respect to the rumors of an 88K machine in
the works.

>Your
>statement that 'system 7 seems to be bringing that to an end' is way out
>in left field: that is, unless you are still booting from a floppy and
>can't afford 45 bucks to buy an extra megabyte of RAM. It is amazing to me
>that so much information gets tossed about on this topic precisely. Also,
>no one is grabbing you by the neck and forcing you to upgrade to System 7.
>System 6 is going to be around for a long time, I think.

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to stomp on people who want to use a computer that
doesn't require an instantaneous investment to make it useful; this is part
of the reason that most systems now aren't sold with less than 2MB of RAM. But,
to upgrade to a new version of the SYSTEM SOFTWARE, a major class of users 
would be required to do just this (someone, not necessarily Apple, is going to
make a bundle!). It's really not surprising that this issue of "7.0 or 6.0, that
is the question" upsets people.

Think about this for a minute. Apple already can't adequately support its own
system software (they do little support themselves on any level). So, now you
expect them to be able to support 6.0.x and 7.0.x at the SAME TIME??? Come on,
now. What people are afraid of is that their trusty applications will soon move
on to 7.0 and leave them behind. Of course, this issue of supporting more
than just the latest version of any product comes into play. The software
publisher would laugh at the idea they had to support two different versions of
one program for a particular machine (some already have too many headaches 
simply support a few platforms from different manufacturers!). So, who ends up
paying? The customer, of course, who is now forced to upgrade rather than face
serious problems in the near future by staying with older software.

You say that no one is forcing people to upgrade, but as I've briefly discussed
above, that's not realistic assessment. Eventually, possibly even within a 
year of 7.0's appearance, vendors will have completely moved their software to
at least a compatability level. Within another 6 to 12 months, the software will
begin to take real advantage of 7.0's features. By this time, people using
6.0 will no longer be able to upgrade to new versions of sotware unless the
publisher really went out of their way to support all platforms... and we all
know how that story goes.

>   InfoWorld this week (with the IBM 486's on the cover) held a tiny
>announcement from Dove for a 16MHz 030 board which will be compatible with
>the Classic, the Plus, and the SE... $799. This was in the Mac News section,
>by the way. No, it doesn't have the Apple label on it, but it sounds like
>a REALISTIC upgrade plan to me!

It sounded like that to me, too. At least until Apple's proclamation that no
third party upgrade products (specifically the '030 upgrades) would be supported
for virtual memory (and you were talking about great support???). In fact, I've
upgraded my SE to an '030 and am already running Virtual. So, the amount of
time that I can put off upgrading is increased; it is certainly not more than
a year or two.

>   Specifically how or where did you get this impression of how Apple (and I
>mean the company, not a dealer sales person working on commission) treats its
>customers? And I really don't think that NeXT or CBM-Amiga can really be said
>to be so much better in their treatment of the installed base.

Let's put it this way: "Call your dealer." By having an inadequately prepared
force of people (dealers) take the full burden of support, customers feel that
there is no one to properly answer their questions. People often run into 
situations where a user calls Apple begging for support, only to get referred to
their local dealer (at least Apple maintains ONE customer support database!). 
Then, they are disappointed yet again by the dealer (in far too many cases) who
claims that Apple's support database doesn't contain the answer... go figure.

Now, Apple has set up an 800 number to stab at a solution, but this number (not
surprisingly) will not provide any help whatsoever unless you've already 
exhausted all other avenues. And THEN, you must describe all sources that you
questioned and explain why their answers were inadequate. So, it appears that
Apple is indirectly placing the burden of watchdoging the dealers on its
CUSTOMERS! Not a very healthy attidude if you want to improve customer 
satisfaction on the whole, in my opinion. How about it, Apple? Why not an 800
number to provide SUPPORT (vs. support contingent upon how many people you've 
already been upset by)?

Certainly, no company's perfect. But I don't that see that as a reason to pat 
Apple on the back and say "Good job, Apple". If the company doesn't clean up
its problems, they'll come back to haunt them later.

-- 
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* Bill Taroli (WWTAROLI@RODAN.acs.syr.edu)    | "You can and must understand  *
* Syracuse University, Syracuse NY            | computers NOW!" -- Ted Nelson *
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