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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: major micro article in business week
Message-ID: <1290@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Sep-83 15:03:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1290
Posted: Wed Sep 28 15:03:59 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Oct-83 23:55:15 EDT
Lines: 37


   The October 3 issue of Business Week containts a cover story on
how IBM has come to dominate the micro market, especially in business.
Some of the figures seem to differ from what I have seen before.
   They claim IBM will produce < a half million PCs in '83, slightly
fewer than Apple.  But they also say IBM will manufacture as many as
2 million next year, which is the about the number of micros of ALL
brands sold in 1983 (!!).  If IBM's supply ever catches up with demand,
they may well cut prices again (rumor has it a 50% cut would not hurt
them), and further dominate the market.
   IBM makes a PC every 45 seconds.
   Victor (trading at $22/share a few months ago, $4.75 now), Fortune,
Vector Graphics, etc. in serious trouble.  Kaypro went public in
August for $10/share instead of the expected $18, and they're in
good shape!  Apple shares have dropped from $62 in June to a fraction
of that now (look it up in the financial pages - it drops almost
daily).  They are looking to put mice and Lisa-like software on
everything, EVEN THEN APPLE //e!
   MicroPro (WordStar) says it won't even consider writing anything
that doesn't run on the PC (other machines, too, presumably, but the
PC for sure).  Softsel (one of the top 50 software distributors,
counting micro and mainframe sources) says 85% of the software
offered to it was Apple last year and only 3% IBMPC.  Today it's
36% PC and 35% Apple.  The trend is clear.
   The only threat to IBM, and it's a weak one at the moment, is
cheap PC clones from Japan.  Since Boca is already run largely by
robots, though, it's hard to see how Japan could win a price war.
Might be nice for the consumer, however.
   Aside from the Peanut and a portable, Business Week predicts a
multi-user system in the $10-20K range from IBM in the future.  Also
on the way:  a local area net Apple admits is likely to become
a standard, no matter how good or bad it is.
   Also profiled is HP's entry with the limited IBM similarities and
the touch-sensitive screen.  Opinion seems very divided on whether
it will fly.  DEC is conspicuous by its absence from everything but
the charts.  That alone is enough to hurt it in the corporate market
place.  LOTS of people read Business Week.