Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ig!bionet!agate!ucbvax!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: If not Apple 2, then AMIGA (not PC Message-ID: <8903160226.aa27819@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> Date: 16 Mar 89 06:32:21 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 58 >don't listen to you then we won't be here for long. As a consumer, you have >to let people know that given the choice, you'll buy a PC before you'll buy >a Macintosh. There are many here who can't understand why you would want a >II or a PC when the Mac exists, and if YOU don't let them know then they will >never understand. Alas, it may be worse than we think. Sounds like too many MBA's thinking everyone must be like themselves (or the person in the cubicle down the hall). Disaffected potential Apple // customers don't want a PC!! They'll be much more likely to buy an Amiga (and if Apple's 3rd party developers ever figure that out along with all it implies, look out!). Odd that all the marketing types who don't know octal from hex worry so much that if the // was a better machine it might cannabilize sales from the Mac. Mac's are really nice if one needs to do a major financial plan or crunch some serious numbers, but to much (if not most) of the Apple // crowd Macs are BORING!! (or too expensive). Sure Visicalc sold an awful lot of II+'s to accountants, but that isn't (and never really was) the //'s natural market. Apple has "user evangalists" that either don't understand what the user groups (clubs) and users are all about or are unable to communicate what they know to the managers that count. User groups are where you find people who want to EXPLORE computing (a truly heterogeneous mix of folks with the guts to take a soldering iron to their still in warranty Apple, expert and novice programmers with no interest in monkeying with the hardware - except to make more room or more speed for programs, kids who want to be entertained, and even some who bought a computer but really haven't much idea what to do next). There are a fair number of "serious" (i.e. business) users (who'll admit, under pressure, to using a PC or maybe even a Mac at the office), but they rarely seem interested in mixing their business computing interest with their interest in Apple 2's. There REALLY are two DISTINCT natural markets and Apple is blowing what in the long run will be REALLY big bucks from a one of them. When the Amiga first came out the "smart money" thought it was nifty hardware but believed Commodore's financial situation was such a mess that it couldn't survive. Lo and behold, Ami now has a large enough installed base to be taken seriously and it has staying power! Apple has done a really nice job of positioning the Mac for a run at serious sales to the Fortune 1000+. However, it's senseless to abdicate the market that provided the $$$ to make the Mac strategy possible. Apple's attitude is in the spirit of Henry Ford's "you can have any color you want as long as it's black." Ford did very well, but General Motors did even better. Murph Sewall Vaporware? ---> [Gary Larson returns 1/1/90] Prof. of Marketing Sewall@UConnVM.BITNET Business School sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu [INTERNET] U of Connecticut {psuvax1 or mcvax }!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL [UUCP] -+- I don't speak for my employer, though I frequently wish that I could (subject to change without notice; void where prohibited) According to the American Facsimile Association, more than half the calls from Japan to the U.S. are fax calls. FAX it to me at: 1-203-486-5246