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From: agodwin@acorn.co.uk (Adrian Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: HP-95
Message-ID: <6721@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 26 Apr 91 11:56:44 GMT
References: <1991Apr24.072657.26687@neon.Stanford.EDU> <11398@uwm.edu>
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 26

In article <11398@uwm.edu> anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
>In article <1991Apr24.072657.26687@neon.Stanford.EDU> zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) writes:
>>I saw an article for the HP-95 on the news tonight.  The news made a big deal
>>about it, saying it was starting a whole new market.  Although the machine
>>looked nice, I was wondering why it is considered to be starting a market.
>
>Because the news media is stupid.
>

True, but that's not all the story - mostly, it's because the biggest market for 
such a machine is composed of non-computer-professionals.
They've had their fingers burnt before with machines that turned out not to run their 
familiar software and will jump at the chance to buy something with a 'trustworthy' 
PC name like 1-2-3 on it.

They don't care whether someone else has done it earlier/cheaper/better - they want 
a plug-in-and-play solution.

So HP may not have broken new ground technically (though I have no doubt at all that
it's a beautiful machine), but they have done in marketing it where the buyers are.

-adrian

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Adrian Godwin                                        (agodwin@acorn.co.uk)