The Macintosh rolls out in a din of publicity and showmanship
Apple Computer's new Macintosh will be introduced this week, accompanied by sirens and ceremony fit for a maharajah. TIME San Francisco Correspondent Michael Moritz watched the computer's development while writing a book about Apple that will be published this summer by William Morrow & Co. His report:
Whispers about Macintosh have circulated for more than two years, but in the past six weeks Apple has been relentlessly thumping drums for its new machine. The company has used a fleet of tractor-trailers to transport a flashy demonstration to 1,500 dealers in six cities. It has primed its sales force, courted Wall Street analysts and tried to arrange deals for exclusive magazine coverage. Even before the machine is out, 100,000 copies of Mac-World, a magazine entirely devoted to the computer, have been printed. By the end of April, Apple will have spent $15 million promoting Macintosh.
The cause of all the hullabaloo is a jaunty, cream-colored computer that will sell for $2,495. From the side, Macintosh looks like an offspring of E.T. and R2-D2 that might start walking. But the fuss is also about Apple, the company that likes to say it invented the personal computer. If Apple is to beat back IBM and continue the whirlwind progress that has taken it on a seven-year ride from manufacturing in a California garage to annual sales of $1 billion, Macintosh must be a triumph.
Though Apple sold more than 100,000 of its He computers during December, the company has been losing out to IBM. Apple's share of worldwide personal-computer sales, according to Dataquest, a California research firm, has slipped from 29% in 1981 to 23% in 1983. IBM's part has grown from 3% to 28%. Last week IBM announced that it will spend $40 million boosting its new computer, the PCjr, which is designed to compete with the Apple lie. Faced with IBM's attack, Apple President John Sculley says: "We've got to make Mac an industry milestone in the next hundred days. If we don't get it together in 1984, Apple is going to be just another personal-computer company." Concurs John Roach, chairman of Tandy, the maker of Radio Shack computers: "If Mac doesn't take off, Apple has to watch out."
In Mac, Apple may have a winner.
The machine, which weighs only 20 Ibs. and can be carried in a tan tote bag, has many of the features Apple introduced in January 1983 with its Lisa computer. It uses a "mouse," a pointing device the size of a stick of butter, that permits users to give commands to the computer with just a push of a button. Like Lisa, Mac relies heavily on symbols and pictures on the screen to help people conquer computer phobia. But unlike the more expensive Lisa, Mac cannot swap information between different programs.
Apple hopes that Mac will differ from Lisa in one important way: popularity. While Lisa was touted last year as a technological marvel, it has been a market dud. The company hoped to sell 50,000 in 1983, but sold fewer than 20,000. The main criticism of Lisa was its $10,000 price tag.