Re: Wozniak vs Jobs

[Jeff Lemke <lemke@terra.cira.colostate.edu>]

Regnirps wrote:
> 
> Jeff Lemke <lemke@terra.cira.colostate.edu> wrote:
> 
> >Supertimer wrote:
> >>
> >> Jeff Lemke <lemke@terra.cira.colostate.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> >In the mainstream business market, where the lion's share of money in
> >> >computing was to be made in the '80's, the IBM PC's explosive lead was
> >> >virtually unbeatable, even by 1983 when the IIe and the overpriced Lisa
> >> >had been released.  I can't speak to the comparison of the
> >> >sophistication of IBM PC's in accounting versus the Macs in desktop
> >> >publishing, because I'm not a business accountant, and because it's
> >> >really comparing apples and oranges (no fruit puns intended).
> >>
> >> IBM PC really did break into business overnight because of its name,
> >> but that did not guarantee the IBM PC a 95% market share.
> >>
> >> Before the IBM PC, it was Apple that sold 95% of the computers and
> >> that was the Apple II series to schools.  When IBM PC hit coporate
> >> market, those Apple II did not disappear.
> >
> >
> >Perhaps 95% to schools, but certainly not overall.  There were a lot of
> >other computer makers, Tandy being a major contender itself in the late
> >70's and early '80's.  All those other makers made up more than 5%
> >marketshare.
> 
> I am befuddled by your time line. Late 70's is pretty much Apple all by itself.
> To say Tandy had any but a tiny and late presence seems strange to me. By
> others, perhaps you mean Osborn and Kaypro and Ohio Scientific and such? These
> were popular in the electronics magazines because they were easier to hack
> hardware with (as in less sophisticated) than Apples, but they were hardly
> players in the market and they came and went rapidly. The most important
> influence of the others was the rapid demand for standards like CP/M which led
> to the premature standardization in the PC business and eventually DOS. Without
> the drive of Carl Helmers and Byte Magazine and Interface Age, a more leisurely
> and intelligent trend towards standards might have dominated, to all out
> benefit.
> 
> Charlie Springer


Now I don't have a market analysis in front of me for the computer
industry for the time period we're talking about, but I do know that it
was never even close to "Apple all by itself".  Perhaps Apple commanded
50% market share at its very peak in the first few years, but no more
than that.  Commodore's share may have started small with their PET's
and CBM's, but Tandy was a very important contender and close rival of
Apple's from the beginning.  The TRS-80 Model 1 and the Apple II arrived
within a couple months of each other in 1977.  Tandy had so many orders
for Model I's that it took them 2 years for their production to catch up
to demand.  What was the attraction for TRS-80's?  They were much more
affordable than Apple II's.  (And so were Commodore's, especially the
Vic 20 and Commodore 64.)  

Tandy boasted around 1980 or so that more Tandy computers had been sold
than any other make.  If true, it was probably by a small margin, but I
do know that Tandy sold hundreds of thousands of Model I computers in
the first three years, and in the ensuing years they did have a
surprising measure of success with their Z-80/68000 business computers,
and also released various low end 6809 color computers, portable, pocket
and laptop computers (the first one being the Model 100), and a mess of
desktop Z-80 and 8088 and 'x86 computers for fifteen years.  Tandy had
thousands of Radio Shack stores across the country to sell from, and
they had more different makes of computers to suit every need than any
other computer maker I'm aware of, and they produced, or had produced
for them, all sorts of their own peripheral devices.

Tandy had all the outlets it needed, and it knew how to market.  But
they too were overly proprietary in the beginning, and as time went on
they seemed to become increasingly greedy, trying to maintain huge
profit margins.  As the years went by and competition increased among
the PC clone makers, Tandy found it more and more difficult to maintain
the 50 to 100% profit margins it had grown accustomed to, and in 1993
(roughly) they decided it was no longer in their interest to manufacture
their own computers.  They decided they couldn't make enough money at it
any more to suit them, so they got out.  Tandy has always seemed to me
to depend on huge profit margins.  Everything in their stores, like home
stereo and video equipment, always seemed to be marked up a lot more
than at places like Best Buy and other audio/video outlets.  Even their
cassette tapes were half again to twice as much as comparable TDK or
Sony cassettes.  Radio Shack's 'niche' (to use a word that some don't
want to hear anymore) is that they're quite often the only place in a
given town that sells electronic components and certain stereo and video
items and police scanners and RC toys and things like that.  They quite
often have a corner on the market for that kind of stuff in a great many
towns and cities, so they don't have to price their merchandise very
competitively, and they still make out pretty well.

Jeff Lemke