Last night I was in Fry's and they were selling CTX 233 MHz K6 machines
for $649 apiece. True, they only come with a 2Gig hard disk and 16Meg
RAM, but Fry's now offers 6.4Gig for $189 (!) and I could buy another
64Meg of RAM from them for $94 (!). And true it doesn't come with a
monitor but Fry's sells a 17" monitor for $329 (!). So for a 233 MHz K6
with a 56.6 modem and 8.4Gig of hard space and 80Meg of RAM and a 17"
monitor, my transaction cost would be about $1300, which is what the
iMac is retailing for and has:
> Industry analysts were mixed as to whether the solution is the iMac,
> which will have a 233 megahertz processor, 32 megabytes of memory, a
> four gigabyte hard drive, a modem, and a standard 15-inch monitor.
> However, like a lot of lower-cost machines, it cannot be upgraded,
> except for the memory.
and unlike the iMac, the CTX is upgradable even more than I've already
(hypothetically) done.
By the way, $649 for a 233 MHz Winbox is the death bell for the Network
Computer. Say goodnight, Larry Ellison. There's a new sheriff in town.
-- Adam
P.S. -- Despite our FoRK discussions recently, I'm still not sure why
the heck Apple is doing this iMac thing in the first place. All and all
seems like a ridiculous move. (No offense, Ernie.) Apple should stick
to keeping happy its high-end bread-and-butter: graphic designers and
hard-core developers. You cannot compete simply by having a quality
product, because in this domain people care more about cost (and
perceived value) than they do about taste. You can't win here. Move
on, and for goodness sake, let we the teeming masses have access to
Rhapsody already...
> Apple Unveils New Low-Cost Computer
> By MATT RICHTEL, New York Time, May 7, 1998
>
> PALO ALTO, Calif. -- With his trademark sense of pomp, circumstance
> and drama, Steve Jobs, Apple's interim chief executive, unveiled on
> Wednesday the company's new low-cost computer: the iMac, a translucent
> teal and white plastic box, replete with monitor, keyboard and mouse,
> that sells for $1,299.
>
> A closely held secret that the company has worked on for 10 months
> and that it hopes will permit the once mighty Mac to compete in the
> booming low-cost market, the new iMac immediately elicited strong,
> positive responses from Apple enthusiasts -- not the least of them being
> Steve Jobs.
>
> "This is the iMac," Jobs said as he pulled a velvet veil off of the
> computer during a media event at the Flint Center auditorium in
> Cupertino, Calif. "It's so cool."
>
> Jobs said he hopes the iMac would return Apple to "its roots as an
> innovator," referring to the days when the Apple Macintosh held the
> computer world in thrall. The company's market share has fallen steadily
> since -- now resting at less than 3 percent -- and Apple officials said
> the iMac represents a "re-entrance" into the consumer market.
>
> At least in one respect, though, the low-cost machine is meant to
> follow a direction the Cupertino company has been late to embrace.
> Consumers increasingly have bought into the sub-$1,000 computer market,
> where Apple really has not had a product line.
>
> Industry analysts were mixed as to whether the solution is the iMac,
> which will have a 233 megahertz processor, 32 megabytes of memory, a
> four gigabyte hard drive, a modem, and a standard 15-inch monitor.
> However, like a lot of lower-cost machines, it cannot be upgraded,
> except for the memory.
>
> "This is best machine in the market from a price performance value
> standpoint," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies
> International, a San Jose-based market consulting firm. "There's not
> anything for $1,295 that even comes close."
>
> Bajarin said he believes the iMac will give Mac enthusiasts a reason
> to stay with Apple, and may create some convert some Windows users as
> well. But other analysts disagreed, noting that the iMac does not
> address the fact that there simply is less software available for
> Macintosh than for Windows machines.
>
> "The question is, what does this do to attract a Windows user?" asked
> Michael Gartenberg, research director of end-user computing for the
> Gartner Group. "The answer is: not much."
>
> Gartenberg added that there also is a question about how profitable
> this line of computers can be for Apple. "This does fill a big gap in
> Apple's product line," he said. "But if they sell 1 million and lose $5
> on each one, it doesn't do them a lot of good."
>
> Jobs, who has given the company -- and its stock price -- a boost
> since he returned as CEO, said the event marks Apple "getting back into
> the consumer market." Technically, of course, Apple never left the
> consumer market, but industry analysts said most companies shifted
> toward lower-cost computers while Apple has been focusing on higher
> performance products. The iMac at least seeks to target the heart of the
> new computer market, industry analysts said.
>
> Apple's new product line is also meant to focus on consumer demand for
> easy Internet access. Bajarin, from Creative Strategies, said that one
> reason to be optimistic about the iMac's future is that buyers will be
> more interested in the Internet than traditional software. As a result,
> it won't be as significant a factor among prospective buyers that there
> are fewer Macintosh software titles than Windows titles available,
> Bajarin said.
>
> As for the design, Bajarin described it as "appealing," but somewhat
> "big because it is squatty." Others likened the squatty look to a Ford
> Taurus, or the revamped Volkswagen Beetle. In any case, Bajarin said
> that Jobs was correct to believe that computer makers need to make their
> products more fashionable so as to differentiate themselves.
>
> "Steve actually used the word fashion," Bajarin said. "He's right: the
> way you get attention is to repackage" the computer.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
AT&T says 122.5 million calls were placed last year in the U.S. on
Mother's Day - 100 million to moms, 22 million to grandmothers, and half
a million to something called 1-900-HOT-MAMA.