16 Nov
2000
16 Nov
'00
2 p.m.
On 16 Nov 2000, Eric Smith wrote:
If Apple was able to maintain their prices after
competitors like Atari
and Commodore introduced cheaper machines with whizzier graphics, that
demonstrates that consumers valued expandability and a broad software
base more than whizzy graphics.
Apple also had one other ace in the hole--*schools*! They managed to
donate a lot of computers to schools back in the early days, so many
families bought Apples so that the kids would have the same programs,
disks, etc. both at school and home.
Apples were a lot more expensive too ($1000+ rather than $300-500 or less
for the C64, Atari, etc.) so many not-too-savvy folks thought they were
necessarily "better", I bet...that's probably why Apple kept their prices
higher, as a marketing ploy.
Also, Atari, in particular, was sort of "typecast" as a video game
company, so many folks thought that Atari computers were *only* good
for games, not "serious work" like word processing. Of course that was
patently untrue, there were good word processors, etc. for the Atari as
well. But this type of popular opinion, like most other stereotyping,
dies hard...