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From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Is the Mac 512 still a semi-viable system?
Summary: Some Plus's aren't paid for yet.
Message-ID: <6883@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 16 Dec 89 18:21:31 GMT
References: <272@spot.wbst128.xerox.com> <9271@hoptoad.uucp> <285@fwi.uva.nl> <9298@hoptoad.uucp> <5799@internal.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 46

In article <5799@internal.Apple.COM> chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively) writes:
>In article <9298@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) writes:
>> It will never be
>> cheaper to buy a new computer than to keep an old one, unless the old
>> one is obsolete.
>
>Isn't this a truism?  And isn't the thrust of some of the argument that 
>the Plus is pretty darned close to being obsolete?
>
>A large part of the answer to the question, I think, has to come from what 
>you mean by things like "viable" and "obsolete."  The Plus will always be 
>able to run System 6.x, and applications that will run in one megabyte or 
>less under System 6.x, so yeah, the Plus will be around for an 
>indeterminate amount of time equal to however long the users find that 
>combination (Plus, System 6.x, their favorite apps) useful.

Those that bash the Plus, and keep saying "Why don't you buy a IIci?",
are forgetting a couple of things:

1. Few companies treat any item which costs more than $1000 as a throw-away.
Expensive items such as computers are capitalized, and paid for internally
over several years.  Until the advent of personal computers, the shortest
common period of depreciation was five years.  Which meant that if you
junked it after three, you'd still be paying for it for two more years.

Modern corporations have changed their rules, and now depreciate personal
computers over three years.  However, if we purchased a Mac Plus at our
company for $1200 last July, there would still be $200 of depreciation
charged in 1992.

2. Rarely does anything really get thrown away.  We've still got some 64k
motherboard IBM PCs; they were taken out of service recently because they
died, not because they were obsolete.

3. The most important issue is: Although there are no Mac clones, Apple
still must compete on price.  There are many people at my company today who
say, "With Windows and OS/2, can't a PC do everything in the world of
graphics that a Mac can?"  To which my reply has always been: "Yes, but
Windows and OS/2 require a vitamin-packed PC on steroids.  The Mac Plus
can run Pagemaker just fine."  If there is no low-end Mac, or the low-end
Mac is obsoleted quickly, you lose that argument.

-- 
Craig Jackson
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com
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