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From: merchant@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Merchant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac prices
Message-ID: <7430@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 11:09:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.7430
Posted: Tue Oct 20 11:09:24 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Oct-87 04:34:14 EDT
References: <457@aucs.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY
Lines: 74
Summary: Two cents

In article <457@aucs.UUCP>, Paul Steele writes:
> I have a beef with Apple. [...] 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.
>
> The typical price of a 640K, 20Meg PC-compatible here in Canada is around
> $1500 (and this often includes a cheap dot-matrix printer).
> [...] 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?
>
> 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.

No.  A Macintosh SE is certainly not worth $7800.  I would HATE to see the
price for a Mac II, if that's what the price for an SE is in Canada.

I suppose American pricing is a bit more reasonable.  With the internal hard
disk, it sells for $3599 (or around there).  It's still a bit pricey, though,
when you consider that I can get a cheap 80286 clone for about $1000.  Figure
a nice high-resolution monitor at another $500.

Of course, I think Apple is shooting the Macintosh at the business market,
where they seem willing to pay that kind of money.  Why?  Because there are
lots of annoying hidden costs in PCs that spring up.  For business, there's
the high cost of TRAINING.  That is supposed to be one of the biggest hidden
costs in any personal computer system, according to industry analysts.  They
also have shown that, overall, the Macintosh is cheaper because it requires
less training.

Also, because MS-DOS does not help applications support any sort of standard
interface, MS-DOS programs have evolved their own way of doing things.  Thus,
with each program being quite different from each other program, most MS-DOS
system users use, on the average, two programs and use their computer
half-an-hour out of a typical eight hour day.  The Macintosh user, on the
other hand, uses more programs (I think the average is 5) and is on the
machine an average of four hours a day.  These studies point to a higher
level of productivity in Macintosh users than in their comparable PC users.

So, while your hardware is cheaper, you spend more time and effort learning to
use your computer.  You probably will not take as full advantage of your
MS-DOS system as you do your Macintosh system because of this.  You also will
probably not be as productive, which is why you're buying the computer in the
first place, right?  So you end up having to ask the question:  Is this
ease-of-use and increased productivity worth an extra $1500 to me?

Now, of course, the times are a-changing.  Windows/386 is supposed to be
absolutely incredible.  80386 systems with 20meg hard drives are being priced
comparably with the SE and a 20meg hard drive.  OS/2, when it comes out, looks
as though it might give the Macintosh a definite run for it's money.

What Apple should probably do is position either the 512KE (Who?) or the Plus
as a clone-buster.  "Yes, you can have both the low price and Macintosh
technology."  Position the SE and any of it's brothers as the next tier up.
Position the Mac II and their ilk as the "high-end" of the platform.

But, of course, that's just one man's opinion...
--
"There's so much                        Peter Merchant (merchant@dartvax.UUCP)
 I need to say to you..."