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.