1 Nov
2001
1 Nov
'01
1:21 p.m.
see below, plz.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: OT Steve Jobs rant
Jobs' motives are simply to kill the clones so he can charge 50x his cost
instead of 4x like most makers. I remember all the traffic about whether to
sell the original MAC for $995 or $2995 ... Apple'd have made plenty at $995,
and, if they'd been half as good as the fanatics say, they'd have had the PC
market all to themselves.
I think that
is clearly open to debate. Jobs took the company in the
direction HE wanted it to go, and has at BEST had mixed results, great
success with the iMac, nothing special anyplace else, and he did tremendous
damage. He killed the clone program and the alliance with IBM, and in so
doing lost droves of developers and caused a half dozen of the most loyal
companies that supported Apple to fail. Long term Jobs may be seen as the
person who sent Apple to obscurity trading a loyal base of creative people
for a fickle consumer user base.
Actually, I think killing the clones was a *good* idea. They would have
simply marginalised Apple the way all the Palm clones are now gobbling
Palm. Rather than increasing market share for all Mac-like things, it was
merely subdividing the market so that *no* company could survive. But to
be honest I did lust after one of those multiprocessor Daystars :-)
Besides, I'm seeing Apples in stores that would never have touched them
before. There's even some Mac stuff in Circuit City, and plenty in CompUSA.
And those Quicksilver G4s are pretty bloody sweet.
In the thrift stores here in Denver, you can get almost any Apple product that
shows up, and there have been some pretty powerful ones, for about what a PC
hard disk costs. Clearly, some people hold them in higher esteem than others.
--
----------------------------- personal page:
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University *
ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Dalai Lama to hotdog vendor: "Make me one with
everything."
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