At 12:44 AM -0400 8/6/00, Michael J. Hussmann wrote:
>Apple never intended to sell the rights. They would have _licensed_ the
>rights at most, only they were asking for too much -- maybe because they
>didn't really wanted to license the technology, but believed it to be bad
>PR to openly say so (keep in mind than virtually everything Apple said
>regarding the death of the Newton was just intended to make it look good,
>even if that meant being somewhat economic with the truth).
>
>Also, as has been pointed out before, there's not much Apple could sell,
>even if they wanted to. Without all the brilliant people who created
>Newton technology, all they've got is a pile of backup tapes -- not worth
>buying, if you ask me. The technologies that made the Newton such a
>unique product are nothing secret; things like soups, the view system,
>system-wide services such as search and assist etc. could easily be
>recreated without resorting to the original source code.
>
>Finally, the Newton OS incorporates stuff like QuickDraw that Apple can't
>sell (it's part of Mac OS, including Mac OS X, and QuickTime), and the
>Rosetta recognizer that, some rumours claim, is going to be incorporated
>into Mac OS, which is why it's not for sale. And then there's the cursive
>recognizer that Apple can't sell either, because they don't own it.
Hmm... This explains a lot. However, if, as you say, it would be
relatively easy to recreate the major portions of the NewtonOS that
made it unique, why hasn't someone done it already? There is
obviously demand for a *good* PDA. In other words, if someone could
get a product similar in design to the Newton selling for around
$400-$500 with an OS that worked at *least* as good as the NOS, then
we're in business.
By and large Palm is the largest/most popular PDA manufacturer around
and their PDA's don't even include PCMCIA slots. Aside from that,
there are tons of different models all selling for over $200 with
only minor feature and design differentials as far as I can tell. The
lineup reminds me of the whole Performa Apple nightmare.
It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to oust Palm if someone
just took the most basic principles from the Newton and put some time
and effort into developing something. For instance, create a "Pro"
model and a "Consumer" model. The former would have two PCMCIA slots
and the latter would only have one. The Pro model would have more
memory, the Consumer less, etc, etc. Sell the Consumer model in the
$150-$250 price range and the Pro model in the $350-$500 price range.
Add a cool case similar to the new Apple Optical mouse design (I love
that new look!)...
I suppose I'm probably oversimplifying the amount of work this sort
of project would take, but it seems as though this sort of project
would be well worth it. Take a Newton MP2100 to show some executive
somewhere that uses a Palm. Let him determine which is better (he
would obviously choose the Newton). Then let him know that the Newton
is three years old whereas his Palm is hot off the market. How hard
could it be to convince them to give you some funding?
It just seems a bit odd to me that a product so incredibly good could
simply die, leaving the rest of the market to wallow in Palm
mediocrity. If I had venture capital to come up with a product like
this, I'd take the chance in a second. Perhaps three years ago there
wasn't a huge market for Newton MP2100's at the pricepoint they were
at then, but there certainly is a market for a PDA like that now and
it seems as though the price could be brought down with a bit of work.
There are smart entrepreneurs out there. Where's the one that loves
his Newton and sees the market for it?
I'm not much of a businessman and I don't claim to be, but this all
seems to make sense to me. Anyone willing to shed some light on the
issue?
-----
Joel Watson
-----
"You think it's a conspiracy by the networks to put bad shows on TV.
But the shows are bad because that's what people want. It's not like
Windows users don't have any power; I think they are happy with
Windows, and that's an incredibly depressing thought." --Steve Jobs
***************************************
NewtonTalk brought to you by:
EVOTE.COM -- the ESPN of politics on the Internet! All the players, all the news, and the hottest analysis and features (plus 'toons!) anywhere.... visit http://www.evote.com today!
***************************************
Need Subscribe/Unsubscribe info?
Visit the NewtonTalk section at http://www.planetnewton.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 01 2000 - 00:00:11 CDT