I remember Osborne. Really wanted one but could not afford it at the time!
Paul KD3JF
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 7/6/14, geoffrey mendelson <geoffreymendelson@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TenTec] While Supplies Last
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Sunday, July 6, 2014, 3:09 AM
On 7/6/2014 1:58 AM, Toby
Pennington wrote:
> I just noticed this
little phrase in the advertising piece sent out by
> RF Concepts concerning the sale going on
now. "While Supplies
>
Last". It almost sounds like when the
supply is exhausted there will
> be no
more of these rigs available. Implication could be that
their
> desire is to sell down current
stock, and perhaps send out a new new
> rig for marketing. In retail, "
while supplies last" could mean
>
several things.
You can be sure that the one
thing they want to avoid is the Osborne
Effect. For those that do not know, Adam
Osborne sold a microcomputer
(before IBM
coined the phrase Personal Computer). Osborne's computer
was
unique in the small computer business,
it included software in the price
of the
computer. In those days there were few competitors for
software,
if you wanted an operating
system, you HAD to buy a copy of CP/M. If you
wanted to do word processing, from a single
page letter or list to a
novel, you HAD to
buy WordStar, and so on..
Osborne included (bundled from an old IBM term)
all of these and others
with his computer
and sold it for LESS than the sum of their retail prices.
He did very well, UNTIL he
announced the Osborne 2. It was such a great
advance that no one bought another Osborne 1 in
anticipation of the
Osborne 2. He went
bankrupt.
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey
S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ
Jerusalem
Israel.
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
|