On Mon, 27 Mar 2000 RobertRuff@aol.com wrote:
> The fact that clones were killing Apple profits to me says that Apple was
> either overcharging for it's technology or was producing hardware inferior to
> the clones, both of which I think were true.
PowerComputing's machines were _not_ superior to Apple's in any way.
Cheaper components, cheaper cases, cheaper drives, etc. etc.
I worked as a hardware techie on both, and I can assure you that Apple's
machines were better. Whether you wnated or needed better machines was of
course a question, but they were better.
Apple was overcharging for their technology? Apple spent _huge_ amounts
of money on R&D. Some of it was wasted, some of it produced really cool
stuff. I heard a figure of US$100m for the Newton. THe agreements with
cllone companies let them get away with giving apple a very small amount
of money, not enough to offset the loss.
There was originally a supposed agreement that Power Computing would
target PC customers, rather than existing Apple custoemrs. Yet, they
regularly advertised directly to Mac users. They pre-announced machines
way before they could ship them, making it sound like they were shipping
fatser machine than Applle when, in fact, Apple was just more honest.
I don't llike Steve Jobs' handing of the clones, but the situation was not
good for anybody; a bankrupt Apple would make the existance of clones
meaningless.
gopi.
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