Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!udel!gatech!mcnc!decvax!ucbvax!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Claris Message-ID: <8801060128.aa02493@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> Date: 6 Jan 88 06:10:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 34 As a marketing professional, Apple (and by extension Claris) reminds me of Henry Ford's famous remark "You can have any color you want as long as it's black." The point is, Ford (and Apple) was a sometimes (ONLY SOMETIMES) marketing genius who piddled away a humongous natural advantage by thinking he was smarter than his customers (and when Ford started, GM was neither big nor blue). There's no evidence to support the notion that anyone at Claris knows anything about Open-Apple (published by Tom Weishaar) either. More's the pity. I haven't the time to summarize the discussions about Apple- Works in the last two issues, but if the folks at Claris don't have it memorized by now, they are kissing revenue opportunities in the 7 to 8 figure range goodbye. I don't use AppleWorks. I've seen it, and for my purposes it's an elephant gun when all I have to hunt is rabbits. In that sense, I'm a disinterested third party. Frankly, Apple is NUTS not to get a 12MHz expansion board for the IIgs, a 16-bit version of AppleWorks, and a Mac with 68030 on the market pronto. The enemy is PS/2 and the Amiga 3000 (Apple's darn lucky Commodore hasn't the resources to beat their brains out with that little beauty that's better hardware for fewer bucks than the Mac II); there's nothing that the IIgs can do to hurt the Mac that IBM won't do (gladly) first, BUT the IIgs has a potential market niche that's a potential bonannza (and will do more to clobber the PS/2 models 25 and 30 than the Mac can). I'm not sure which trade pub I read it in (I really should attribute, but alas I've lost the source), but I subscribe to the notion that Apple's primary problem is hubris. --------------------- ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Murphy A. Sewall BITNET: SEWALL@UCONNVM School of Business Admin. UUCP: ...ihnp4!psuvax1!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL University of Connecticut