Re: ANN: Retiring from A2 world - Good Bye All!

[Jalapeno <jalapeno1@mac.com>]

In article <3d0c819b_1@news3.prserv.net>,
 "Tom Zuchowski" <tzuchow@attglobal.net> wrote:

> Sorry about the "top posting". I did not realize that made such a big
> difference to the dialog, I never had a problem with it. How about I just
> delete most of your post and speak generally rather than make specific
> replies?
> 

You can do as you please, of course, but my understanding is that it is 
basic netiquette. Here is a link to RFC 1855. 

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html     Netiquette Guidelines

If you scroll down to section 3 (One to many communications) and look in 
paragraph 3.1.1 (General Guidelines for mailing lists and NetNews) 
you'll find a bulleted item that starts with "If you are sending a reply 
to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top 
of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a 
context." Outlook express does honor this RFC but you have to go into 
preferences and look for an item called "use Internet style reponses" or 
something similar (I haven't used Outlook express in a while so I don't 
remember exactly what it's called).


> Bud, I don't think we are as far apart as you seem to believe. I found
> little in your answering post to argue with.

I am not arguing at all. Stan M. posted that he had an impression that 
the IIGS was basically apple's olive branch to Apple II users. I was 
pointing out that if you look at the big picture the IIGS was intended 
as a transitional machine. Apple was phasing out the II and the only 
market Apple successfully penetrated was the education market. That 
penetration came in the form of the Apple II, II+ and mostly the IIe, 
not the Mac. When viewed as a tranistional machine it is easy to 
understand why it runs both an 8-bit command line and a 16-bit GUI. The 
fact that II sales remained reletively strong in the late 1980's becomes 
irrelevent because that was a dead-end direction as far as Apple 
Computer was concerned. Remember that Sculley was brought in to Apple to 
run it like a business so it wouldn't be subject to the whims of a 
visionary but immature CEO. Apple II's remained on the price list as 
long as a profit was there and until whatever agreement they appeared to 
have had with Microsoft regarding Applesoft expired (which was 1993, 10 
years after the IIe was introduced). Again, I was just pointing out the 
big picture, from my point of view as a technology consultant in the 
1980's.

> ...                                          Sorry if my post was that big
> of a mess. I was not addressing the entire business world, but that segment
> of it in which a microcomputer or three is a major investment. I was
> assuredly not speaking of the level of business in which a $50-grand
> consultant is a good idea.
> 
> I was comparing microcomputers, and dragging in the expensive big iron does
> not seem appropriate to this discussion. 

But here is the rub. You can't just compare micro-computers when talking 
about Apple's and IBM (and it's clones) as business machines. Apple 
understood very well something that you (and magazine "analysts" that 
think Apple _could_ have dominated the PC market) seem to be missing. 

1.) Single unit sales cost more.

Let's look at a simple example with something I'm intimately familiar 
with. You are a computer manufacturer. Chrysler Corporation is gearing 
up for an enterprise wide purchase to replace aging IBM 3270 dumb 
terminals. You can sell 110,000 desktop computers to Chrysler at one 
shot with one sales person and very little overhead. You are the same 
computer manufacturer, you see in your Northern California sales 
territory that 110,000 small mom-and-pop shops that don't have computers 
but want to buy. How many sales people are you going to need? What is 
your overhead going to be? How much time do devote to each potential 
customer (etc.) 

Well, you can't do it. So you sell your computers through a boutique 
reseller (I think BusinessLand and ComputerLand were the two biggies 
back then). Now you have smaller bulk sales with additional discounting 
so your reseller can make a profit too. Apple (including Jobs and 
Sculley) knew which market would make a manufacturer dominant. Without 
sacrificing the boutique market (which they helped create in the first 
place) they still needed/wanted the big prizes.

To only sell machines through retail outlets is condemning yourself to 
being a niche player. To only sell to schools, although a very large 
niche, is still just a niche. Apple wanted to be a dominant player and 
_knew_ it couldn't do it with the Apple II line. 

People make a big deal about Jobs wanting do distance the company from 
Wozniak, which _could_ explain why Jobs split the company into competing 
factions, educational (Apple II) and business (Macintosh).  The bigger 
picture shows that companies like Chrysler, or even companies like 
Eastman Kodak (who invested heavily in Mac's), wouldn't invest in the 
Apple II. Period. Apple could have maintained two lines of computers for 
quite a while but a decision was made (who knows exactly when) that the 
Macintosh was the future of the company. You either throw away your 
educational customers or you try to transition them to your Mac. Bulk 
sales of Mac's to schools can be just as profitable as bulk Apple II 
sales, and you don't have to maintain two research and development or 
marketing departments. Again, volume versus single unit sales is the 
driver.

2.) Corporate culture changes slowly. Apple did everything it could to 
break into the corporate market, they _really_ spent a lot of energy and 
money trying to break in. They had token-ring boards (the IBM lan 
technology), they had CUT 3270 boards to connect Mac's directly to 
mainframes, they developed appletalk gateways and interfaces to show 
that Mac's could be connected to the coporate infrastructure. Apple had 
a stigma as a company run by a couple of hippies and that turned a lot 
of corporate decisions makers off. It didn't matter that the Apple 
Computer was well past that by the time the Mac was introduced. Even 
today when I tell colleagues that they might want to try my iMac they 
say "no thanks, I prefer to use computers". Where are Apples big sales 
today? Multimedia firms, I think. Maybe still the schools (I haven't 
seen figures since I left the business).

Apple never were able to penetrate the business market (and the 
mom-and-pop-shop is only a niche, not THE business market). 
Consequently, they've never made it past being a niche manufacturer. 
They are in a profitable niche but combine the year 1999-2000 sales of 
IBM, Compaq/HP, Dell and Gateway and you can see what Jobs and Sculley 
were looking at in 1983. They were trying to get there but they failed. 
They are and always have been a niche manufacturer. They never had "the 
business machine" as you said. They tried really hard and couldn't do 
it. They're lack of dominance having anything to do with the Apple II 
(or the ///) line just doesn't hold water. It is a cute theory but there 
just aren't any facts when you look at the big picture.

> ...               If that is where we are going, the
> bank I worked at used a Burroughs mainframe rather than any of the
> aforementioned platforms. I don't know this for a fact, but I believe that
> it did in fact cost quite a bit more than an Apple II or a PC. <g>
> 

Which has zero relevance, except that if you look at that banks late 
model replacements for the Burroughs and it's terminals you are going to 
see IBM PC's (or more likely a Dell or Compaq) as the interface to the 
mainframe. That includes interfacing with Unix servers, not to mention 
Windows NT servers. At no time will you ever have seen an Apple II, 
especially a II+ which you called "the business machine" and odds are 
you'd never have seen a Mac there, either. When you talk about dominance 
you have to look at the big picture. Apple wouldn't have got where they 
did had they stayed with the Apple II.

> Apart from that, I am somewhat bemused that you remark on my "passion" for a
> stand and then go on to agree with it. Perhaps you either misread my post or
> else I was not clear. I'm happy to take the blame, I've always had a problem
> making sensible statements in a brief sentence of two.
> 

You used the terms "toy" and "pitiful" and I took that to mean you have 
a distaste for Macs. My apologies if I was wrong but from the tone of 
the paragraph you appeared to have been a veteran of the PC/Mac internet 
wars. People who are veterans of those wars (of which I stayed out) tend 
to have passion. As do people who engaged in the Turley/anti-Turley 
wars, which is the driver of most of this thread :)

Regards,