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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karin who wrote (16109)	7/31/1998 3:21:00 AM
From: Zen Dollar Round	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

I can not figure out why AAPL did not include a Floppy Disc Drive in their iMac.-- Because the iMac started life as the NC, or Network Computer. The concept of the NC is a network bootable device that starts up as a smart client to a powerful server. NCs don't need a floppy drive as all their software comes from and is run from the server. I'm sure the engineers could have added a floppy drive controller and drive to the iMac, but it would have increased the cost and Steve Jobs thinks the floppy is outdated. So, he decided to go with what they had when the market realities of the NC didn't pan out. Hence, your iMac without a floppy drive.

To: Karin who wrote (16109)	7/31/1998 6:15:00 PM
From: BillHoo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

<<I can not figure out why AAPL did not include a Floppy Disc Drive in their iMac.-->> Perhaps from a consumer point of view this is a flaw. From a business point of view, I notice that very few people in techno savvy corporate environments use floppies. IT people tell their users, "If you want to make sure that it gets backed up, you better not save it on floppies or the c: drive. Put it on the server and it'll get saved archived with the nightly backup!" Again from an IT point of view, most of the viruses that enter corporate environments come from people bringing infected floppies into the workplace. There are easy ways to scrub servers of virus bearing material. However, most people disable the virus protection on their desktop PCs because it slows them down in those rare occasions when they get a floppy from a client. Jobs is taking a risk by not including a floppy drive - true. However, he is changing the computer industry again by forcing people to try new technology. There will probably be a new computer market developed purely for selling content and applications through the web. If you need an application it's on the web. Want to check out some music or video? It's on the web. Bill Gates has talked about these concepts (actually Sun and Oracle were the first to really pitch them) but never had the control over the hardware to make it happen. With the exception of USB peripherals, I've also noticed that it's harder to find external floppy drives on the market aside from computer shows. No one needs them any more. Manufacturers can't make enough money selling such a cheap device. If you're going to add a storage device, it's likely to be a Zip or Jaz, hybrid (1.44 MB/120MB) floppy or even a CD burner. Just my thoughts. -Bill_H