NewtonTalk.net November 2008 archive: Re: [NTLK] Newton Availabi

From: Ed Kummel <tech_ed_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon Nov 17 2008 - 16:42:02 EST

If you look at what was available back then, you had a very broad field of products at just around the same price point. Just off the top of my head, there was the AT&T EO (440 and 880), Sony PIC1000 (aka 'Magic Link'), Motorola Envoy and to a lesser extent the Motorola Marco, Bell South Simon (made by IBM and Mitsubishi, sold by BellSouth) HP OmniGo 100, as well as the HP200 and one of the first Windows CE devices, the HP300lx and it's more capable 320lx, both precursors to the Journada. So, the field was quite ripe with choices at the time...so if one group didn't play nice with a corporate purchasing plan, another would...and mostly that was HP...They were probably the strongest players in this field...Although my favorites being the AT&T EO (I still have a 440...complete with the Analog cellphone connector) and of course, the Newton. In my experience, Apple was the least friendly corporate player..in fact, Apple's attitude in those days was
distinctly *anti-corporate* in almost every way possible...as if it was using it's anti-corporate stance as a way of differentiating themselves from the rest of the computing world...kinda the "rebel" if you will, of the computing arena.
I firmly believe that this attitude was the primary reason for their failure in so many ventures in those times (early to mid 90s) I also think that this time was a problem for Apple in getting their products built in any numbers to supply the demand. Apple was coming out with a major OS release ever other month it seemed like....and along with that, their hardware was changing so drastically, as an end user it was difficult to keep up with their product offerings. (should you get the VX, or wait for the Centris? Or maybe save up for the Quadra?) Apple was all over the map and not being reliable at all...so it was with a certain sense of accomplishment when Newton was spun off from Apple so that they would no longer be held back by Apple's stodgy approval process (I remember reading something from Amelio about the Newton where the Newton would be equipped with a graffiti reader. Not what you think...this was a camera that you would point at some graffiti
written on a wall, or even a street sign and the Newton would translate it into what ever language you chose...wow...that would really be cool..don't know any real practical use, but cool? Yeah!)
Now Newton would be free to proceed in the manner best for the platform, instead of what was best for Apple...
Unfortunately, the man of the hour $J blazed his way back into Apple and destroyed everything...No more Newton, no more clones, and no more support for either! (we had a whole server farm based off of Apple clones...$J's attack required us to scramble and find replacements for these machines...luckily there was another company going out of business locally and we got a handful of Quadra 950s and some extra quickmail licenses in the process!) It was a turbulent time to be an Apple computer administrator...Needless to say, when we were required to purchase our first PC running Windows so we can run PeachTree accounting (feds said we needed something better than a spreadsheet for our books) and I discovered all the other things and the un-ending amount of stuff that was available for them that I realize that pigeon holing our company with Macs was doing nothing but hurting our ability to compete...Needless to say, Once I found out how to network Mac
workstations to a few Windows servers, I never looked back...
I left that company to get solidly into the windows world at several major ISPs. From what I heard, they are still running Windows servers in the backend and Macs for the order taking people. A perfect union!
Ed
web/gadget guru
http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Richard Feynman, Physicist, Nobel winner (1918-1988)

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

--- On Sun, 11/16/08, James Fraser <wheresthatistanbul-newtontalk@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: James Fraser <wheresthatistanbul-newtontalk@yahoo.com>
Subject: [NTLK] Newton Availability
To: newtontalk@newtontalk.net
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 8:18 AM

Hello,

--- On Sun, 11/16/08, Ed Kummel <tech_ed@yahoo.com> wrote:

> ...and since each vendor was only getting 10-20 Newtons per shipment,
>this would take years to gather the Newtons necessary to satisfy the DOT

What was Newton availability like around this time?

As in: was Apple limiting the supply of Newtons as part of a *deliberate*
policy? Or were they trying to shove as many Newtons out the door as possible,
but manufacturing limitations meant that Newtons were a relatively scarce item?

To be honest, I was always under the impression that it was the high price
point (relative to full-blown desktops) that contributed, at least in part, to
the death of the Newton. But perhaps it was the simple fact that the Newton was
available in such limited numbers that it simply never had a possibility to
reach the Critical Mass needed for a computing device to gain widespread
popularity (and therefore continue to be made)?

Best,

James Fraser

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Re: [NTLK] Newton Availability