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From: keir@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Rick Keir, MACC)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Apple won't let me buy a Macintosh LC?! (ANSWER)
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.175408.22377@macc.wisc.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 91 17:35:30 GMT
Sender: news@macc.wisc.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Lines: 34

[omitted:  Brian Kendig, @ Princeton, can only buy the
 hard disk based LC model, because the floppy model isn't
 available at an academic discount]

Brian,

I suspect that it is not Apple, but Princeton.  Prior to the 
announcement of the LC, it looked like we would be offered
the option of selling the floppy LC by Apple, and *we* 
(meaning the people engaged in resale) turned it down.  Now,
I am a consultant, not a sales person, so my info may be
out of date, but as far as I know, higher ed dealers still
have the option of purchasing floppy LC models for resale.

So why don't they?  Well, when the question came up
here I strongly urged the people who sell *not* to offer
that model, because the number of unhappy customers with
two-floppy machines we'd had in the last year was roughly
equivalent to the number of people who bought two-floppy
machines.  I've listened to them scream at us a month later when 
they find out that they can't run anything on their machine 
without a hard disk.  And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't 
want to sell 2-floppy systems.  I suspect that similar reasoning 
applies at Princeton.  

Flame retardant:  Flame me for my opinions, but I did not stop 
sales of the floppy LC here.  Consultants do not work for the 
sales group, and vice versa.  The sales people asked our opinion, 
and there was a consensus that these machines were a bad idea.  
Apple reps tried to make a pitch for these machines as good 
things.  Opinions were solicited elsewhere.  In the end, the 
"It's a bad idea" made a more convincing case than Apple did.
You can flame me for being one of the people who was persuasive 
on this issue.