day 60

behind apple's blunder 2: the worm in the apple by Philip Machanick

Yesterday, we described the advantages Apple had in mid-1995 when Windows 95 was released by Microsoft. Apple was poised to expand market share -- or so it seemed. Apple had the potential to deliver competitive performance. The old excuses for buying a Mac despite the higher price should have fallen away. I expected Apple to move fast to consolidate their advantage by pushing high-end systems wherever they could. I also expected Apple to rapidly move the low-end Macs from the old Motorola 68040 line to a PowerPC 603e. The 603e was likely cheaper to make, and was already shipping at clock speeds faster than 100MHz. What did Apple do instead? The underestimated the demand for high-end systems. The margins on these systems could have sustained more competitive pricing at the low end. Instead, Apples failed to drop the 68040 line. The result? Coming tomorrow.

behind apple's blunder 1 Daily Dose Index