Apple expects bumper crop

Press, 18 February 1986, Page 33

Apple expects bumper crop

The New Zealand distributor of Apple computers seems likely to sell 40 per cent more this year than in 1985 — 60 per cent of them Macintosh computers.

Mr Mai Thompson, general manager of C.E.D. Distributors, Ltd, forecast this on a recent visit to Christchurch to promote the new Apple Macintosh Plus.

To realise these projections Mr Thompson is counting on making inroads to the business and corporate marketplace.

C.E.D. and its dealers will concentrate on providing solutions to cus-

tomers’ problems rather jthan just selling “boxes,” says Mr Thompson. He also promises a “rationalisation of the way Apple dealers will be doing business.”

Behind the dealers will be a slimmer C.E.D. Distributors, now with 26 staff compared with 43 before a recent reorganisation.

Apple has helped its own chances by releasing the Macintosh Plus, a machine everybody says the Macintosh should Initially have looked like. Macintosh Plus systems are available in New Zealand. A system with a 20*

megabyte hard disc and an Imagewriter II printer sells for about $12,000. The older Macintosh, with 512 K bytes of memory, has dropped about $4OOO in price in four months and will continue to be sold to customers who do not immediately need the Macintosh Plus features.

Mr Thompson estimates 40 per cent of his sales will come from the venerable Apple II family. “We haven’t repositioned Apple II prices and that is the next . exercise,”

Another aspect that will improve Apple’s chances is the software available

for the Macintosh that, was not last year. Among the offerings ate six to eight choices of financial applications software and Excel, a spreadsheet package which Mr Thompson says is “untouched” by anything else in the market.

Promised by Apple, says Mr Thompson, is hardware and software “just around the corner” which will give the Macintosh compatibility with the 1.8. M. world.

This compatibility is expected to cover emulation of 1.8. M. mainframe terminals and the 1.8. M. personal computers.