In what could lead to a major breakthrough in acceptance of the Macintosh in corporate environments, Apple Computer Inc is working on a skinny configuration of the Mac that could sell for around $1,000 according to chief executive John Sculley. Sculley told Computer Currents, What we have found in talking to large installations of…Macintoshes, is that they’re not ready to put $5,000 to $10,000 computers from anybody on everybody’s desk. Essentially what we’re going to be doing is building out the Macintosh experience from the very low end, down in the range of the $1,000 price point, out to the $10,000 price point. No-one should look for the baby Mac anytime soon however – Sculley is talking in terms of 1991 or sooner. Stressing that the machine will not be aimed at the fun-and-games end of the market, he said that the machine would probably not have the advanced features of the SE/30 or II, nor the SuperDrive that enables Macs to read MS DOS, ProDOS and OS/2 disks. But a really cheap diskless workstation on a network linked to much bigger Mac servers would greatly enhance the attractions of the machine in corporate environments. Before it’s released, however, the baby Mac will involve major design and engineering changes to enable it to be brought in at the price, said Sculley: it does require some radical design implementations from a hardware standpoint. You shouldn’t get any less than you get now with a Macintosh Plus, he added.
