Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!ncar!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpsmtc1!dlw
From: dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Computer for the rest of us?
Message-ID: <11540170@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 88 22:03:36 GMT
References: <430043@hpcea.CE.HP.COM>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 72

Terriann asks:

>Whatever happened to the dream of the computer for the rest of us? To the
>vision of Mac decendants as common in households as a toaster?
>When was the last time you saw a Mac being advertized as the computer
>for the rest of us? Who are the rest of us?

>Has the dream become a tease to those ever increasing numbers of people
>who can not afford a Macintosh?

I think the answer is that it died when Steve Jobs, Andy Hertzfeld, Burrell
Smith, Guy Kawasaki all left Apple.

Apple's focus for the Macintosh is no longer the individual--it is the 
individual in BUSINESS. Or the power to be your best in a CORPORATE WORLD. The
vast majority of Macs are now sold directly into businesses. Gone (for the most
part are those of US who put our money where our mouth was and personally 
bought a Mac and took it to work. 

Apple does not care about us anymore...their prices reflect that. To my mind
the minimal Macintosh is a Mac II with at least 2 megs of memory, Color and
at least a 90 meg hard disk. How many individuals will be able to afford this
at the rate Apple's prices are going? Not many I assure you. 

So, where can we turn? Perhaps Steve Jobs once again...if the rumors of the
features and price of his 4meg 68030 machine have enough truth to them.

Steve Jobs took Jeff Raskin's vision of an appliance computer and productized
it. John Sculley, JL Gassee have taken that vision in turn to grow Apple into
a organization whose focus is to sell Macs to Businesses and Apple II's to
Individuals. I don't want an Apple II, and I won't buy one. I want a Personal
Workstation, and I think NeXt Inc. will be shipping one shortly.

I wish Apple success in its ventures into the fortune 500...
However a word of caution that I hope the Apple employes on the net can 
communicate up their management chain:

There are a lot of little guys (I call them Change Agents) that you are leaving
behind.  

	We are the people who bought your machines in the past. 

	We are the people who took your machines to work when management 
	 said a personal comptuer had to run MS-DOS.

	We are the people who develop small and large niche markets for you
	 to penetrate by selling hardware.

	We are the people who CAN NO LONGER AFFORD YOUR STATE OF THE ART
	 MACINTOSHES.

	We have to choose between buying cars, houses, feeding and clothing
	 our families and (in the case of students) pay for our education.

	Your price points no longer make it feasible for us to choose Apple.

	What happened to increasing performance and functionality thru the
	use of the declining cost of technology? What is the REAL cost 
	differential of using a 25 mhrz 68030 in the Mac IIx or even a 33m?
	Why didn't the SE ship with a 68000 at 16mhrz?

The gap of access to technology and information has just grown wider.

Perhaps some other company will step in to fill the void that exists, one can
only hope.

David L. Williams
Change Agent
Macintosh owner (since 1984)

dlw@hpda.HP.COM     
...!hplabs!hpda!dlw