Re: Apple ///?

[bjbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major & Dennis J. Gorin)]

In reply to:

>      As things turned out, the Apple III was a miserable failure and
> so was the Apple Lisa. Despite that, the Apple II not only kept the
> company afloat, but highly profitable too (which came as a surprise
> to management at the Apple Computer). Oddly enough, Apple once again
> decided to try and replace the Apple II, this time with the Macintosh,
> but yet again their new computer didn't do to well and _again_ it was
> the Apple II that kept the company afloat and profitable. By the late
> 80's the Mac was strong enough to stand on it's own though, so this
> 3rd replacement had worked out. Ironically though, now that Apple has
> finally killed off the Apple II, it doesn't look like the company will
> have any future. :)

That last sentence "now that Apple has finally killed off the Apple //"; I
think you need to revisit history.  The decision to no longer support
production of future Apple // models was made some years ago, although
there is some software support for Apple // still on Apple's FTP sites. 
And the decision to "kill off the Apple //" has nothing to do with the
present state of affairs at Apple Computer.  Their present problems are
caused by these things:

1.  Insufficient and weak advertising--especially television.
2.  Waiting much too long to license the Mac OS & hardware to Mac clone makers.
3.  Until recently, expensively high prices for anything with the Apple
name on it.
4.  Bad management and bad CEOs (present one excluded) for the last several
years--enough to do it permanent damage from which it may not recover.

I don't happen to agree with Apple's decision to axe the // line
(especially the //gs), but the Macintosh was gaining strong momentum and
much more visible and in use as a standard platform than what we see now. 
To blame Apple's present problems on the decision to axe the // line is
shortsighted at the least.

--bj
Apple //--///--Macintosh user/supporter/collector