Does Apple miss us?

[avsystem@rain.org (Adrian Vance)]

With regard to comments on the GenieLamp editorial:  Apple damn well does 
miss us and they're going to regret no only the way they treated their 
developers and vendors (I was one of them) is nothing like the deal they 
pulled on the schools.

According to the best information I've been able to gather, the schools 
spent more money on software than hardware, or an amount equal to it, 
certainly not less, where they bought about four million Apple IIs, at 
nearly $2,000 each with monitors and drives, the total was eight billion 
dollars and Apple had only penetrated eight percent of the potential 
school market in the dozen years it was pushing the II.  If the schools 
only spent another eight billion on software, and it was probably more 
like ten or 12, Apple's killing the II cost the schools $16 to $20 
billion in educational utility.  If you think school administrators are 
going to forget that then you need to talk to a few of them.  I do every 
day and while many of them like the new Macs they have a hard on for 
Apple that would chisel granite.

If someone could come up with a legal GS clone, which would run all the 
old software as well as the 16 bit stuff, they could clean up in the 
school market, but this effort would take major financing and it would 
almost have to come from Apple.   Will they do it if they become 
desparate?  Stranger things have happened, my friends.

Adrian Vance

PS - I am not privy to any rumors nor do it have any special information 
and I do not want to start any rumor.  This is simply speculation.

                               AV