Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!chuq From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Left in Dust? (was: Adobe Type Manager) Message-ID: <35035@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 26 Sep 89 21:02:37 GMT References: <35011@apple.Apple.COM> Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps Lines: 49 >Apple computers are no more expensive than IBM or Compaq. I just thought people might appreciate a few facts to bac this up. From the 19-September issue of macweek there were some price comparisons between various vendors with equivalent hardware. The systems (all Unix based) and prices are: NeXT: 8 meg, 17Inch Mono, 330 Meg hard drive and floptical. Cost: $13,690 Mac IIcx: 8 Meg, 80 meg internal, 250 meg Priam external, Ethernet card, A/UX, Sigma 19 inch mono screen, Lc Cie 600 Meg Floptical. Cost: $20,393. IBM PS/2 80: 8 Meg, AIX, Ethernet, 16 inch monochrom, Storage Dimensions 590 Meg floptical, 314 Meg hard disk: $24,853. Sun Sparcstation 1: 327 Meg hard drop, delta 800 Meg floptical. Cost: $22,495. Now, all of these machines are loaded to try to match the NeXT configuration, but it gives a good idea of how the pricing for things stack up. (People consider A/UX expensive. Look at AIX on a PS/2...) If you want to strip down those configurations a bit more towards reality, cut out the ethernet and flopticals from the IBM and Macintosh and you gets costs of $15,000 for the IBM and $14,500 for the Mac. IBMs really *aren't* cheaper than the Mac. Take a look at some of the parts costs: The Mac bundle (4Meg of RAM, 80 meg of disk with MacOS, Hypercard and A/UX bundled) is $7552. The IBM bundle (2 Meg of RAM, 300 Meg of disk and no software) is $9227. Memory upgrades: 4 Meg of RAM, $858 for the Mac. 6 Meg of Ram for the IBM $3,166. Cost per meg for the Mac is $214, for the IBM it's $527. Finally, I note again: these numbers are from MacWeek, not from Apple, so any attempt to claim that Apple's manipulating numbers will be cheerfully ignored -- especially since one of MacWeek's favorite tricks is complaining about how overpriced Macintoshes are. chuq (which doesn't mean we don't need a cheaper low-end Macintosh, but that's just my opinion....) -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking. I am not Appl Segmentation Fault. Core dumped.