Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Complaining to Apple Message-ID: <8903200312.aa16414@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> Date: 20 Mar 89 07:25:02 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 108 >I will venture this much, though -- Apple is a large company with a large >installed base of customers. I *personally* (see the disclaimer below) >believe that it would take a significant amount of letters/emails/phone calls, >all arriving to the same place at pretty much the same time to make anyone's >jaws drop. First, as the remainder of your message indicates (between the lines anyway) this approach really isn't practical. Second, any company that needs to be hit between the eyes with a two-by-four to recognize what the market is thinking deserves to see the sales erosion that takes place when consumers do what the do instead of organzing protest campaigns (one by one they take their money elsewhere until they're gone and then the managers who were too smart to pay attention to anyone else find they can't get them back). >There is a tendency among people who fanatically believe in what they do that >those who disagree are merely misinformed. You eventually will find that it doesn't matter whether everyone but you is out of step or not. Just making a better mouse trap will not cause the World to beat a path to your door (it rarely dawns on inventors that mice don't buy mousetraps :-) If you want to make obscene profits you have to KNOW what people want as well as what they should want (and if there's a difference, don't expect them to see it your way without a LOT of effort on your part). Perhaps you should you should tell your fellows about the pedestrian that insisted on the right of way and ended up DEAD RIGHT). >If a large number of Apple customers believe that Apple is doing them wrong, >then either Apple must change its ways to retain those customers, or Apple >must convince those customers that they have not been wronged. Neither will >happen if Apple is not aware that there is a large-scale customer satisfaction >problem. Apple has not heard of consumer research (or just doesn't have enough sense to use it)? In truth an organized "letter campaign" (even from a bunch of computer nuts who have the skills to let their Apple II's "personalize" mass mail) wouldn't present an accurate picture. Apple really needs to know TWO things 1) how many potential customers (the 4.5 million isn't the relevant base - what's relevant are those with the money and the will to purchase again) are discontent, and 2) how much INFLUENCE do the discontented have on the spending decisions of others. The people on this net and on Appleworks-PE are likely to be known among a LARGE circe of friends to be information sources (if you don't believe that call the University of Connecticut Computer Center -- whom I don't work for -- and tell them you have a question about Apple 2's and see who they tell you to call ;-) My recommendations depend very much on what people who call me want to do with a computer, but so far, I haven't been given a situation for which I'd recommend a IIgs. I've recommended, the Mac SE-030, the //c (from 47th Street in NYC), the Laser 128, the Amiga, assorted MS-DOS laptops, even the new portable (20MHz) PS/2 Model 70, but NOT the IIgs. If I'm multiplied (by how many universities are there?), it's NOT good news for Apple now matter what general purpose user surveys or last quarter sales statistics say. >There are many ways this could be done: inCider/A+ could run a survey page Not a good idea. First it doesn't make sense for Apple to let it's market slip away while expecting someone else to do for them what they should be doing for themselves. Second, while InCider (or Nibble or Call-A.P.P.L.E.) subscribers might be more representatives of Apple's potential market than other populations, a "survey page" doesn't meet basic scientific standards. You (me too) are too young to remember the famous magazine poll that predicted Landon in a landslide (1936), but you can look up the outcome (at least you don't recall reading about President Landon in school :-). >it's certainly not the case. I do believe that if customer dissatisfaction >among Apple II owners is as high as reports on this and other networks would >seem to indicate, that someone needs to do something fairly innovative to get >this message across to Apple management. In the long-run customers don't care; they'll simply take their business elsewhere. Hubris cost Henry Ford more than Apple has yet made. The company survived, but it isn't what it might have been. Apple management will eventually discover that the customers aren't working for them. It appears that IBM has been inept enough to present Apple with a major opportunity to grab a substantial chunk of the business market and that Apple has been doing reasonably well at seizing that opportunity. However, that success provides no basis for losing a grip on the (separate) market that built the company in the first place. In spite of all the gnashing of teeth on this net (and LOTS of other places), if Apple produces a (color) Mac SE type computer for less than (a guess - $2500), they probably can draw the bulk of what is (or might be) the IIgs market. It's not clear that that Apple plans to do anything like that in the foreseeable future or that it wouldn't make more sense (economically, and in some other ways) to simply continue developing the II line. In the end, I'm not sentimental. I bought an Apple II because, at the time, it suited my needs better (and for less money) than what IBM had to offer. I'm within sight of a major upgrade to my personal computing. I may buy from Apple and I may not. It rather depends on whether Apple once again does a better job of offering what I need than someone else (that Model 70 portable looks a whale of a lot better than every spec Ive seen for the laptop Mac -- The LapMac appears likely to become Apple's version of the PC "Convertible"). 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