Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!dalcs!aucs!paul
From: paul@aucs.UUCP (Paul Steele)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Mac prices
Message-ID: <457@aucs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 08:15:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: aucs.457
Posted: Thu Oct 15 08:15:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 02:10:18 EDT
Reply-To: paul@aucs.UUCP (Paul Steele)
Distribution: na
Organization: School of Computer Science, Acadia Univ., Nova Scotia
Lines: 47

I have a beef with Apple (although I doubt that they'll really care). I
work in a university computer center and support the various microcomputers
on campus.  We have both PC's and Mac's on campus, but certainly a lot more
PC's in total.  One of the main reasons for the approximate 5 to 1 quantity
difference between PC's and Mac's is the ridiculously high price of Apple
products, in particular the Mac SE.

When people ask me for recommendations on what type of computer they want
to buy, I usually say it depends on how much they want to spend.  I like
recommending systems with 1 floppy and 20 Megs of hard disk storage mainly
because software these days just doesn't work well in dual floppy environments
(on both PC's and Mac's).

The typical price of a 640K, 20Meg PC-compatible here in Canada is around
$1500 (and this often includes a cheap dot-matrix printer).  Both Tandy
and Epson have had such offers over the summer.  For most students, $1500
is quite affordable.  Then I tell them how much an equivalent Macintosh
system would cost.  A Mac SE with 20Meg hard disk lists at $6150.  Of
course, they'll need a printer as well:  another $1045.  And they'll need
a printer cable: another $50.  After adding tax, the final results are:

           PC-clone:   $1650.
           MAC SE:     $7970.
           MAC Plus:   $7518.  (Inlude's Apple's HD20SC)

Admittedly, the Mac SE/Plus might be slightly better quality.  And because 
of a good selection of software, the Mac might be able to do a few things
the PC can't without adding extras.  But is it really worth 5 times as
much as a typical PC-clone?  I don't think anybody on this net, except
perhaps Apple, would think so.   If you were a student, which system would
you most likely end up with?

Some people will probably complain that I'm comparing apples to oranges,
and to a certain extent I probably am. But what I'm looking at here are
two systems which will both do a similar job.  I'd like to hear people's
comments on this matter.  Just for the record, I think a Mac SE should cost
about $1800, with the hard disk version going for around $2500.  The printer
is worth about $500.  If Apple would adopt such a pricing policy, I think
they would see a significant increase of Mac sales to end-users, not just
educators and researchers who can get significant discounts.  But maybe
Apple isn't interested in us end-users?  Comments?


Paul H. Steele      USENET: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Paul
Acadia University   BITNET: Paul@Acadia
Wolfville, NS
CANADA  B0P 1X0     (902) 542-2201x587