Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!apple!baum
From: baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Screwing Little Guys
Message-ID: <27491@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 17 Mar 89 20:52:26 GMT
References: <79700022@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <96@armada.UUCP> <15903@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: baum@apple.UUCP (Allen Baum)
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 24

[]
>In article <15903@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes:
>Agreed. But they *should* ANNOUNCE new products, and not just vaporware
>press releases a year in advance! This is sometimes the dealer's fault,
>but I have seen the case where a product was actually unveiled, but not
>released to the retailers for several months...
>
>Dave

I'm afraid there are some serious legal implications to this. If you announce
something a year in advance, and your schedule slips, lawsuits are possible;
your competitors claim you pre-announced a whizzy vaporware procudct so that
everyone would wait to buy your product, and wouldn't buy theirs (IBM lost
a $100 million dollar lawsuit over that one).
 Not to mention the fact that this gives your competitors a years head start
on what your product and marketing plans are, or the fact that the chances that
nothing will change in your product plans in that year is close to zilch.
 So, maufacturers lose either way; they get lawsuits if they're late, or tip 
off the competition if they're not.
 I'm afraid that none of these 'pre-announce' schemes have the slightest
chance of working, in the real world of course.
--
		  baum@apple.com		(408)974-3385
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