Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!encore!banyan!gordon
From: gordon@banyan.UUCP (Gordon Lee@Eng@Banyan)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Walkman computers
Message-ID: <380@banyan.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jan 89 19:43:54 GMT
References: <8932@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <8901191651.AA10945@pinocchio.UUCP>
Lines: 36
In-reply-to: bzs@pinocchio.encore.com's message of 19 Jan 89 16:51:12 GMT

>In article <8901191651.AA10945@pinocchio.UUCP> bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>Personally I've never seen the attraction of portable computers, I
>don't often get the urge to write a program on a bus or plane,

Portables aren't sold to porgrammers, most of them are sold to travelling
salesmen and other mobile service oriented workers who use them strictly
to run turnkey applications.

Last year I had a housemate who had his own business selling car maintenance
protection plans to new and used car dealers who would pass them on to the 
sucker, oops, customer who bought the car.  He was constantly travelling 
from dealership to dealership all over New England and New York.  I only saw 
him one or two nights a week.  He would examine cars and keep detailed records
of what his plans were covering and charge the dealer accordingly.

He knew very little about computers but knew enough to want to get all these
paper records into a portable.  Very sensible, because then he could print off
tidy reports of inventory etc for the dealer, get signed receipts, etc, etc.
And best of all, his client dealers would be impressed with his high-tech
professionalism as he walked into their office and powered up the portable.

He wanted me to serve as his technical consultant but I 
didn't have the time so refered him to someone else.  I was quite suprised
at how much money he considered this paltry dbase project was worth to him.
It opened my eyes to what has been the real driving force behind the PC/MS-DOS
market.  The business market (the masses) does not mind spending what to me 
seem like exorbitant prices for very simple (yet adequate) levels of 
technology.  Price a product for its perceived value, not its intrinsic value!


-- 
==========================================================================
Gordon Lee            banyan!gordon@bu-it.bu.edu  or  gordon@bu-it.bu.edu
Banyan Systems, Inc.     
Westboro, MA