At 01:43 PM 7/19/2002, you wrote:
>Actually, I'm in the planning stages of my own computer assembly and
>support shop. It may or may not get off the ground, but who knows? I
>do have some business knowledge, and have watched this industry for
>several years. The problem right now is that Apple has an increasing
>"customer goodwill" problem: They're losing it. And it was the one
>thing that kept Apple going for so many years.
>
>Apple does have substantial cash reserves, an article in the Mercury
>News posted to bayarea.com
>(http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/business/companies/3263779.htm)
>claims Apple to have four billion dollars in cash. Even assuming it
>costs Apple two million to keep iTools running until it dies by upgrade
>to .Mac or attrition, that's not even a dent compared to what it could
>do to keep people happy with purchasing Apple products.
>
>I've seen several reports over the years talking about Apple's high
>amount of fluid cash, so it's pretty hard not to accept the fact it's
>out there. Canceling iTools the way they have is a certain way to
>generate ill will from the users, as has been shown by the large (and
>-badly- written) petition that started circling around, and the other
>recent developments such as the high price for 10.2 are not helping. At
>all.
...and cancelling the Newton was a bad decision from our point of
view. Monetarily, however...
Don't get me wrong - I love the Newton. I use it more often than I use my
Handspring (so much so that I'd have to think about WHERE my Visor Edge is
right now...). However, from things I've heard, part of the reason Jobs
was willing to kill it was the fact that it was losing money at the
time. (He may have hated Sculley, but only a moron kills a project that's
making money - and Jobs has shown that he's no moron. No people smarts
maybe, but not a moron.)
There's a reason that every company that offers free e-mail and such
eventually starts charging for it. Someone else has already listed most of
the factors, but I'll list the ones that come to me off the top of my head:
1) Servers cost money (electricity to run them, space to house them, people
to maintain them)
2) Bandwidth costs money (mainly in the monthly costs on having a
T1/T3/OC3/whatever)
3) Employees cost money (you need helpdesk people, after all, and a staff
to pay those people, and...)
Now, you have 4 billion dollars of available money (I'm ignoring that to
actually access ALL of it would effectively cut Apple's throat), which is
earmarked, as others have said, for R&D, downturns, lawyers, and any number
of other things. Let's start spending it on a venture which will bring in
very little money. (How many people buy things from Apple because Apple
gives them free e-mail and such? They buy from Apple because they like the
machines and the platform.) Yeah, you can keep it going for a long time,
but as you're doing so, you're pissing away that 4 billion dollars you had
available. Where's the actual return for that money you're
spending? Minimal at best.
How much business are they actually going to lose from making this
change? Again, minimal, compared to what they stand to make from making
the change.
I've seen a few people make comments about iTools being free for
life. Show me the agreement. Either it never says that it will be free
for life, or if it states that it's free, there's a clause in there about
changing the agreement unilaterally at any time. (Usually they make some
sort of comments about notification...) Someone intimated that their
actions are illegal. (I know it wasn't you.) Again, read that
agreement. Apple does not hire stupid lawyers.
Keith McComb
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Would somebody PLEASE reboot the clue server?
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