The Newton is an amazing piece of technology- but yup, it's a turkey, the
same way NeXTStep was, and Lisa, and Betamax- a well-engineered product
concept, the execution of was totally bungled by a corporation thanks to
marketing hype that was never lived up to. So I don't see much of a need to
flame Coursey. Or does anyone seriously think Apple didn't botch the
potential of Newton repeatedly?
Just one observation-
Mock the Palm as you will- but Newtons NEVER hit a price point "sweet spot"
for the mass market while they were in production (the cheapest I ever saw
them were the 130's at $550 or so when the 2x000's were out). People will
drop $200 or $300, maybe $400 on a gadget. It's a lot harder to get them to
drop $600 or $1000- especially when the price starts rivaling that of an
actual computer. Palm's success is definitely based on the 80/20 rule (80%
of the functionality for 20% of the price)- they aren't trying to REPLACE a
computer with a PDA like the Newton (and to some extent WinCE) is, they are
providing a less expensive complement. Once the Palm/cell phone combos come
down in price soon, they'll be doing even better, since two gadgets will be
turned into one. And if something like Rosetta shows up once Palm goes to
ARM chips...
Rob Taylor
robtay_at_mac.com
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