Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!esquire!sbb
From: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac pricing and the future of the Mac
Message-ID: <1092@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 27 Mar 89 23:13:19 GMT
References: <12101@reed.UUCP> <1082@lts.UUCP> <11317@ut-emx.UUCP> <1084@lts.UUCP> <11346@ut-emx.UUCP> <4228fb1e.a590@mag.engin.umich.edu>
Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Distribution: usa
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 53

In article <4228fb1e.a590@mag.engin.umich.edu> billkatt@caen.engin.umich.edu (billkatt) writes:
>Who cares, Apple hard drives aren't worth buying, the tape backup sucks, and
>CD-ROM is dead.  I refuse to comment on the LaserWriters because I really
>love the NTX and would pay full price, and any PostScript printer can replace
>an NT.

Just a note about the NTX.  Few people seem to have noticed, but it is
truly a breakthrough product (just like the original Macintosh and the
Mac II were).  A few years from now, when *every* printer has
PostScript and *every* printer has a SCSI interface, people will be
griping about how much Apple charges for the NTX, and why they didn't
put a SCSI port on the original LaserWriter, since *everyone* knows
that a printer is useless without 173 resident fonts.

Apple products let you do whole *worlds* more than comparable PC-based
products (and even Unix-based products, unless you're willing to hire a
few sysadmins to maintain your network for you).  They let you do all
this *now*, not five years from now.

It's hard to justify paying $5000 for a 16Mhz 68030 and a floppy drive,
but it becomes much easier when you decide to network a few of them, or
put one or more LaserWriters on AppleTalk and make them available to
every Macintosh you've purchased (running every Macintosh
application).  If my friend at Citibank were running an "inexpensive"
PC-based system, I wouldn't be able to give him the number of a
mail-order house and have him just call up and order a half-dozen
fonts.  "Sure, Mark, just drop them in your System Folder".  Try that
on a PC.  Try adding a second monitor to a PS/2.  Fat chance.  Try
using a *large* monitor on a PS/2.  Does it run with all your
software?  Nope.

In fact, try doing what my friend Mark (who has no technical
background) did at Citibank with their Macintoshes:  buy LocalTalk
cabling, AppleShare, and a LaserWriter and install a complete
functioning network in an afternoon.  Then ask whether it's worth
paying a little extra for your hardware, even if it is just
a terribly slow 68030 with only 1 meg of memory and no fast
static RAM cache or any other bells and whistles.

For all the expense, I think you really do get your money's worth from
a Macintosh system.

So I wish people would stop griping about how much money Apple
is making on each sale and how little of it they're investing
in new hardware design.  Instead, be glad that you can do *now*
what people who own every other type of computer (personal
and otherwise) won't be able to do for years yet.

--
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   cmcl2!esquire!sbb            | 
   esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu    |                           - David Letterman