Editing Macintosh Classic (section)

==History==

===Development===
After Apple's co-founder [[Steve Jobs]] left Apple in 1985, product development was handed to [[Jean-Louis Gassée]], formerly the manager of Apple France. Gassée consistently pushed the Apple product line in two directions, towards more "openness" in terms of expandability and interoperability, and towards higher price. Gassée long argued that Apple should not aim for the low end of the computer market, where profits were thin, but instead concentrate on the high end and higher profit margins. He illustrated the concept using a graph showing the [[price-performance ratio]] of computers with low-power, low-cost machines in the lower left and high-power high-cost machines in the upper right. The "high-right" goal became a mantra among the upper management, who said "fifty-five or die", referring to Gassée's goal of a 55 percent profit margin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carlton |first=Jim |url=https://archive.org/details/appleinsidestory00carl/page/79 |title=Apple: The inside story of intrigue, egomania, and business blunders |publisher=Random House |year=1997 |isbn=0-8129-2851-2 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/appleinsidestory00carl/page/79 79–80]}}</ref>

The high-right policy led to a series of machines with ever-increasing prices. The original Macintosh plans called for a system around $1,000, but by the time it had morphed from [[Jef Raskin]]'s original vision of an easy-to-use machine for composing text documents to Jobs's concept incorporating ideas gleaned during a trip to [[PARC (company)|Xerox PARC]], the Mac's list price had ballooned to $2,495.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Levy |first=Steven |title=Insanely Great: The life and times of Macintosh, the computer that changed everything |publisher=Viking |year=1994 |isbn=0-670-85244-9 |location=New York |page=111 |author-link=Steven Levy}}</ref>

With the "low-left" of the market it had abandoned years earlier booming with [[White box (computer hardware)|Turbo XT]]s, and being ignored on the high end for [[UNIX]] [[workstation]]s from the likes of [[Sun Microsystems]] and [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]], Apple's fortunes of the 1980s quickly reversed. The Christmas season of 1989 drove this point home, with the first decrease in sales in years, and an accompanying 20 percent drop in Apple's stock price for the quarter.<ref name="c117">{{Cite book |last=Carlton |title=Apple: The inside story of intrigue, egomania, and business blunders |year=1997 |pages=117–129}}</ref>

In January 1990, Gassée resigned and his authority over product development was divided among several successors.<ref name="c117" /> Many Apple engineers had long been pressing for lower-cost options in order to build market share and increase demand across the entire price spectrum. With Gassée out, a rush started to quickly introduce a series of low-cost machines. Three market points were identified: a very low-cost machine with a target price of $1,000, a low-cost machine with color graphics, and a more upscale color machine for small business use. In time, these would develop as the Classic, [[Macintosh LC]], and [[Macintosh IIsi]], respectively.<ref name="c117" />

===Release===
''[[MacWEEK]]'' magazine reported on July 10, 1990, that Apple had paid {{US$|long=no|1 million}} to Modular Computer Systems Inc., a subsidiary of [[Daimler-Benz AG]], for the right to use the "Classic" name as part of a five-year contract.<ref name="classicspeculation">{{Cite news |last=Farber |first=Daniel |date=June 21, 1080 |title=Apple shells out $1 million for 'Classic' name |page=1 |work=[[MacWEEK]]}}</ref> Apple did not renew the contract when it ended.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Linzmayer |first=Owen W |title=Apple Confidential |date=1999 |publisher=No Starch Press |isbn=1-886411-31-X |edition=1st |page=208}}</ref> ''MacWEEK'' speculated the Macintosh Classic would use the same {{val|8|ul=MHz}} [[Motorola 68000]] [[microprocessor]] and {{convert|9|in|cm|adj=on}} display as its predecessors and that the Classic would be priced from {{val|p=$|1500| to |2150|fmt=commas}}.<ref name="classicspeculation" />

On October 15, 1990, [[John Sculley]] (then Apple [[CEO]]) introduced the Classic at a press conference, announcing that pricing would start at {{US$|long=no|1000}}<ref name="pricing">{{Cite news |last=Hertzberg |first=Lanny |date=November–December 1990 |title=New Macs from Apple |page=6 |work=Electronic Learning}}</ref> and saying, "To reach new customers, we didn't just lower the prices of our existing products. We redesigned these computers from the ground up with the features customers have told us they value most."<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 22, 1990 |title=Apple Computer: lower cost Mac PCs target new customers. 50 percent less for entry-level system. |page=3 |work=EDGE: Work-Group Computing Report}}</ref> Apple's new pricing strategy caused concern among investors, who thought it would reduce [[profit margin]]s.<ref name="investorconcern">{{Cite news |date=October 16, 1990 |title=Apple Unveils Low-Cost Macs |work=Albany Times Union |location=Albany, NY}}</ref> Brodie Keast, an Apple product marketing manager, said, "We are prepared to do whatever it takes to reach more people with Macintosh{{nbsp}}[...] The plan is to get as aggressive on price as we need to be."<ref name="investorconcern" /> After the release of the Classic, Apple's unit price of its publicly listed shares closed at {{US$|long=no|27.75}} per share, down {{US$|long=no|0.50}} from October 12, 1990, and far below its previous 12-month high of {{US$|long=no|50.37}}.<ref name="investorconcern" />

The Classic was released in Europe and Japan concurrently with the United States release. In Japan, the Classic retailed for {{JPY|198000|link=yes}} ({{US$|long=no|1523}}),<ref name="japan">{{Cite news |last=Yazawa |first=Naoyuki |date=October 18, 1990 |title=Japan: Apple prices new Macs, cuts old prices |work=Newsbytes (Newswire)}}</ref> more than in the US but matching the price of the [[Toshiba|Toshiba Dynabook]] laptop computer.<ref name="japan" />

After spending {{US$|long=no|40 million}} marketing the Classic to first-time buyers,<ref name="demand2">{{Cite news |last=Zachary |first=G. Pascal |date=November 21, 1990 |title=Demand turns new Macintosh into rare Apple |work=[[Wall Street Journal]] (Western Edition)}}</ref> Apple had difficulty meeting the high demand.<ref name="demand">{{Cite news |last=Borrell |first=Jerry |date=March 1991 |title=How does Apple deal with success? In fiscal 1991 Apple Computer will ship over 1&nbsp;million Macintoshes |page=23 |work=[[Macworld]]}}</ref> Apple doubled its manufacturing space in 1990 by expanding its [[Singapore]] and [[Cork (city)|Cork, Ireland]] factories, where the Classic was assembled.<ref name="demand" /> Air freight, rather than sea shipping, was used to speed delivery.<ref name="demand" /> The shortage caused concern among dealers, who blamed Apple's poor business planning.<ref name="demand2" />

Macintosh Classics and [[Macintosh LC|LCs]] had been given to [[Scholastic Corporation|Scholastic Software]] 12&nbsp;weeks before they were officially announced,<ref name="masses">{{Cite journal |date=April 1991 |title=Macs for the masses |journal=[[Compute!]] |volume=13 |issue=4 |page=26}}</ref> and Scholastic planned to release 16&nbsp;new Macintosh products in 1991.<ref name="masses" /> Peter Kelman, Scholastic's publisher, predicted that the Macintosh would become "the school machine of the nineties."<ref name="masses" /> The Classic was sold to schools for {{US$|long=no|800}}.<ref name="pricing" /> This, and the availability of educational software, led to the Classic's popularity in the education sector.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Krey |first=Michael |date=March 25, 1991 |title=Classic is on backorder |page=18 |work=The Business Journal}}</ref>