Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!virginia!uvacs!rwl
From: rwl@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Ray Lubinsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Jobs' marketing scam
Message-ID: <3098@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 21 Apr 89 00:41:54 GMT
Organization: U.Va. CS Department, Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 26

I just realized -- Jobs and the "if you want a NeXT, you'll have to go to
college" biz has been a complete white wash!

A previous poster (from apple.com, I believe) pointed out that Jobs had agreed
not to compete in the business market for a set time after leaving Apple.
Then, I just read an article where someone opined that H. Ross was behind the
move to retail through Businessland...

I put these ideas together with the fact that Jobs could never hope to squeeze
a major profit out of the academic market in these times especially not in the
liberal arts (for which these machines would be ideal), and I realized that
he never intended to!  He just wanted to make everyone who wasn't "allowed"
to get a NeXT real hungry for one and then -- presto -- he changes his mind and
now everyone can get one.

It would have been more subtle if he'd put up more of a struggle to hold to the
academic market and waited a little longer.  It might not have even felt like 
we've been manipulated by slick hype instead of rational evaluation.

At least I'm reassured that he's not as naive as I had thought he was.

-- 
| Ray Lubinsky                           rwl@amber.cs.virginia.edu (Internet) |
|                                        rwl@virginia                (BITnet) |
| Department of Computer Science,        ...!uunet!virginia!uvacs!rwl  (UUCP) |
| University of Virginia                 (804) 979-6188               (voice) |