Armonks had enough
The big news this month is of course the fact bleu cheese
pulled out of the school market, and except for all but the yuppies
in the world pulled out of the home market. When bleu quit
producing the dog (Hey JT how’s your lab full of ‘em?) they called
the junior two weeks ago, they signed their death warrant for both
the school and home market.
To pull out now, just before the super spring rush when
school’s make up their mind on what they are going to add this
summer to their hardware arsenals, is the first honorable thing the
cheese please folks have done. At least a lot of school district’s
won’t blow a lot of bucks on micros that won’t be around any
longer. Anybody want a great deal on some Commodore Pets? The
effect this will have on the competition, the increasingly
bureaucratic fruit company in Cupertino, known to the rest of as
Apple, is still to be seen.
I was shocked to go into my local dealer and see Uncle Frank
with eight ][e’s sitting there in cartons. That hasn’t happend for
over a year, and my fruit company sources (who are also giving some
of their production folks an unannounced two week vacation because
of overstock) we got more of them than we know what to do with. In
marketing terms this translates to “We are ready for the spring
order rush”.
It’s no surprise, as my sainted pappy once said, if you are
going to rape somebody, rape ‘em good, and if you look where bleu
has been going lately you can see why. No matter how many PC’s
running DOS 2.0 there are in the world, the AT runs 3.0 and nobody,
and I mean nobody, develops software for old hardware. Admittedly
our bleu contacts here at WLN ; not the bibliographic utility
aren’t what they used to be (the bleu meanies won’t even let me go
to their educational meetings anymore) but it signals one of two
things to me: either there is a PC][ in the works (and these rumors
float all over the above ground journals) which will run DOS 3.0
(leaving their present owners the choice of buying new hardware or
running old software) or you have twenty meg or nothing.
One nice side effect: no longer will education journals be full
of the funny little guy on roller skates telling us how great
“Writing to read” is. I feel sorry for folks who bought into it and
dug it and now the cheezers can say “you want a micro for your
kindergartners – no problem just 5 grand and you can slap the AT on
their desk top.” With that kind of storage a rugrat can be issued an
AT when they enter school, record every spelling test and english
paper on the drive (we better teach em to back stuff up) and when
they leave at the end of the twelfth grade everything they have
ever done will be with them.
Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes
April brings about some serious changes for a lot of our
friends. BS is back where he wants to be. The Follett Corporation
recognized how valuable micros really are and made the software
division of the old book company into a real live, stand by itself
entity. Chuck is commander in chef; Andy is wearing the hat for
library software; Dandy Don is taking over the Quality Courseware
tasks; and Brent “write another print driver” Thorwall is covering
the software development trail. The last time I was over there he
took me into a corner and showed me the latest baby, and when it
comes out it will be dynamite. Last but not least, your humble
editor is moving to State Library of Iowa to become the Network
Coordinator. The plan: tie the cornfields together with micros.
more, later
