Re: The apple 2, the PC, and the clones

[Robert Boucher <boucher1@alumni.utexas.net>]

Michael J. Mahon wrote:

> Ah, but the business community as a whole never considered Apples
> (of any kind) to be a respectable business machine.  The acknowledged
> counterculture origins of Apple did not inspire the kind of confidence that
> IBM did.  When IBM entered the market, the business PC was born.
> (Remember, in marketing, perception _is_ reality!)
> 
> The clearest evidence of this is the phenomenal growth in PC sales
> to businesses in the year following IBM's introduction.  Apple never
> touched this kind of volume to businesses.  In fact, until IBM entered
> the market, business looked upon PC's as hobby machines or toys.
> Adventurous individuals in business bought VisiCalc, not businesses.

In my own company of 13,000, indivduals in various departments were
taking work to their home computers. AS an example, although I was in
engineering, I was taking a lot of work home from Purchasing to do
various evaluations using VisiCalc. As these people starting pushing
management for a computer "in the office", management looked to IT which
had only IBM mainframe experience. Their response was "you can't go
wrong buying IBM." Thus, although I had specifically requested an Apple,
I got an IBM. (And continued to take work home!)