Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!mts.rpi.edu!Garance_Drosehn From: Garance_Drosehn@mts.rpi.edu (Garance Drosehn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: The New Macs: Greedy Compromises? Message-ID: <90{^6B_@rpi.edu> Date: 29 Nov 90 23:51:16 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. Lines: 68 References:<1990Nov29.005944.17800@scrumpy@.bnr.ca> <_M{^JJ&@rpi.edu> <1990Nov29.185737.17454@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> Nntp-Posting-Host: gilead.its.rpi.edu In article <1990Nov29.185737.17454@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> treeves@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Terry N Reeves) writes: > We cannot say "x million people bought the classic, therefore apple was > right not to use a 16mz 68000" We have to ask "would x+y million have > bought it if they had gone 16mz?" You can bet apple asked. They need > to hear from those "y" people if they were wrong about how big "y" is. My point is not that they sold machines, my point is that they can not keep up with the demand for the machines they have released. + machines would *not* be sold, because Apple can't even build the number. Once the demand falls below their capacity, then they'll (presumably) trot out a better machine to entice more of those people in the camp. Even if they could mean the demand of + people, your comments overlook another point. It's not how many people own Macs, it's how much profit they (Apple as a company, in business to make money) get out of it, long term. This is not some weird aberration of Apple, Inc. This is capitalism in action. > The issues raised here need to be voiced and people from apple DO read > this. they need our feed back if they are going to decide how to sell > us more macs. We want them to make a prodect we will buy so we win too! > Ranting on about how all apples decisions are made to increase profits > doesn't tell US anything we don't know and doesn't tell THEM anything > they don't know. Indeed, the issues raised here may very well need to be raised. But this is not the most effective way to raise them. You raise them by not buying their machines. My ranting and raving (about how they are in business to make money) was done for a reason. You can write up megabytes of usenet articles to say how stupid the machines are, and it won't do a damn thing unless Apple has trouble selling those machines. And, on the flip side, we could sit here and praise Apple for making wonderful machines, and *that* would not mean a thing to Apple if those machines were in fact not selling. The original poster asked a long line of questions of "Why did Apple do such-and-such?". I think those minor side issues of historical interest. For all I know, Apple went with a 68020 because they were nervous about the Motorola/Hitachi legal disputes. Or maybe they did it because John Scully didn't get a christmas card from the guy at Motorola who runs the 68030 line. Who cares *why* they did it? The major issue is "Will enough people buy it?". Will you buy the machine if the *reason* they did it was because of the legal battles, but NOT buy that very same machine if the *reason* was a missing christmas card? Don't get me wrong here, I agree that they could and should have done these machines differently. The only machine that looks interesting to me (and my wallet) is the Mac IIsi. I just don't think we can call them stupid or lazy, given the success of the machines so far. In some sense this success annoys me, because I would have thought that a 8Mhz 68000 machine would bomb in this day and age. It hasn't bombed though. Their business sense seems better than mine (for these machines, at least, the Mac portable is a different story :-). As to the question in the subject of this article, my answer would be "They sure are. What did you expect?". Apple would love to sell Mac Classics for over $10,000 (I imagine), while Mac users want something faster than a Mac IIfx for under $700 (or at least I do...). Both sides are greedy, in their own way. Any machine that comes out will be a compromise between the two extremes, because neither extreme is sustainable. I think the current machines are a shrewd compromise between the extremes. Garance_Drosehn@mts.rpi.edu ITS Systems Programmer Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy, NY. USA