Re: MCL sells Macs!

[irvine@lks.csi.com (Chuck Irvine)]

>>>>> "Ron" == Ron Parr <parr@attica.berkeley.edu> writes:
In article <2k90fk$apt@agate.berkeley.edu> parr@attica.berkeley.edu (Ron Parr) writes:


Ron> MCL is the only reason that I purchased my Mac.  I wonder if Apple
Ron> has considered the dollar value of Apple products that are sold just
Ron> because MCL exists.

Ron> Apple should realize that people who buy Macs to run MCL are not
Ron> typical Mac customers.  They aren't Mac fanatics; they *tolerate*
Ron> the Mac so they can run Lisp quickly on an inexpensive machine.

I would put myself in this category. As an interesting aside, I once
heard that during the AI boom years, say 1986-1989, Sun discovered
that they were selling a very considerable number of Sun workstations
to organizations whose only motivation was wanting to run either KEE
or ART, two Lisp based expert system development tools, on unix
workstations rather than Lisp machines.

Ron> As the cost of Unix and Windows based machines drops while the
Ron> performance of these machines improves, MCL will lose its edge
Ron> unless it is upgraded to produce native PPC code.  THIS MEANS
Ron> THAT APPLE WILL LOSE HARDWARE SALES, not just Macs, but printers,
Ron> monitors, etc.  They will also lose sales of non-MCL software
Ron> that MCL customers would add to their machines.

Ron> In abandoning MCL (which is essentially what Apple is doing),
Ron> Apple is not just abandoning a low-profit product, it is
Ron> abandoning hardware and software sales to an entire market
Ron> segment.  This seems like a very foolish decision.