>------------------
>>Why is it so hard for some people to acknowledge that Apple really *did* need to narrow its' product focus to get the company back on track? Why does there need to be any more to it than that reason?
>------------------
>
>Whoa, uhhh, how 'bout the 'fact'
>that 'Newton' WAS spun-off!?!
Newton Inc. was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple, still funded by Apple.
>How 'bout the fact Sharp had 'color' LCD's going into testing phase!?!
I don't see what difference that makes. (The MP2100 was almost pulled before it could be released, but the Newton division was able to convince the-powers-that-be that it would still sell to vertical markets.)
>How 'bout the fact that sales finally reached sustainable levels, including the 'much-sought-after' eMate!?!
I use my MessagePad virtually every day, and I've yet to find anything I'd feel comfortable using in its' place. (And I'm not looking forward to the day I'll have to.) But I'm still not convinced that the MessagePad would have survived to be anything more than a marginal success in a market dominated by the Palm platform and further fragmented by Windows CE.
By the time the MessagePad had become a truly powerful, remarkable product with the MP2000, the Palm Pilot was already well on the way to completely dominating handheld computing. A seperate Newton Division, even with a comparable Palm-sized product, might not have made much of a difference. (A Newton product, no matter how nifty, may never have been able to reverse the reputation of the original MessagePad.)
>Even the 'other' Steve didn't agree with Newton's untimely death.
I wasn't happy with the outcome, either...I just don't buy into the assumptions that the discontinuation of the product wasn't a practical business decision (even if it was painful to Newton users).
BRIAN/bpearce@cloud9.net
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