The Dark Side Invented the World (Or so goes the popular myth)
by Mercury Montclair
Wondering through the halls of Comdex 96, ducking mimes and the plastic smiles of the literature thrusters, a heavenly emissary was pushed into my sweaty literature-laden palm and bade me:
Go forth (I HAVE FELT YOUR PRESENCE LUKE) into the realm of the high street (COME OVER TO THE DARK SIDE) and approach Fry's Electronics (YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO) and invest your soul in an HPC, because we are the overlords who must be obeyed, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Love and kisses, Darth Vader. (PS: AH HA HA HA HA! YOU WILL BE MINE.)
Being a little wary of the dwellers of the Death Star and fearing my irrational impulse-buying problem, I immediately gave my credit cards to the nearest charity organization (the Blackjack dealer at the Las Vegas Hilton) for safe keeping. Returning penniless and homeless 3.5 minutes later to the thick of the fray, I strolled - actually kung fu'd, brandishing a sharpened literature bag - my way into the temporary Death Star and attempted to get near the HPC wares on display.
Darth, clearly sensing I'd be there, had cunningly employed 5000 sons of the Orient to huddle around the HPC display and repel interested parties with a fervent display of head bowing and confidently spoken but utterly unintelligible inquiries. But Darth's plan had backfired. The knights of the Dark Empire were desperately overwhelmed and reduced to fending off the mass with their best renditions of "it's about half past twelve" and "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?". But the onslaught was too much. Ultimately I couldn't get within PDA-hurling distance of the HPCs and vowed never to darken the door of Comdex again (of course I'll be back at the next one, the brain has a defence(?) mechanism which makes us forget traumatic experiences).
Disheartened, I thought - I wonder how this bodes for all the other people who also invented the PDA/Organizer/Palmtop/Cognitive Enhancement Device simultaneously but at different times, only not as loudly as Darth's team? Will they be downhearted by the Death Star marketing weapon? They were. But they all agreed in no uncertain terms that it was very, very good for the market segment. You could see the resigned frustration in their eyes from years of struggling and hard evangelism, now partially quashed by the billion gigawatt marketing laser.
Anyway, a few months passed, a few reviews came out, and despite the initial megahype, real people (well, journalists actually) were temporarily halting the feeding frenzy and peeling back the veneer a little and peering under the hood, to see what floats (I love mixing metaphors). The familiar message we've all come to know and love/hate seemed apparent to some - hardware-hungry bloatware, with the pendulous carrot of better performance ever unattainable in the distance. I thought to myself, "Surely this cannot be the case, the Jedi wouldn't stand for it, there'll be loud discussions in the streets, the rivers will run with smoothies! The Ewoc's will be disapointed!".
To drift fom the point for a moment - As a result of the success of this strategy I have become convinced that 1) Consumers are actually stupid and 2) there is a conspiratorial society called Consumer Hosing Alliance (CHA!). The Hosers, key members of all the leading technology corporations, sit around a large table in a dark hall, in a secret room at the Palo Alto Marriott, like the Knights of the Round Table, cackling like Beavis: "We will hose them, and ruin their smoothie enjoyment." They then pass around a pointy, limited-edition, Bill Gates Madonna Bra which is worn on the head, like a pair of ears, for the sacred Cornholio ceremony, but that's another story. The thing is, we only have ourselves to blame as they cannot survive without us - "The Gullible Fools! HA HA HA!" - as we are known.)
Anyway, having been foiled at Comdex, with my best metaphorical Swiss Army knife blade poised and ready, I set out to do some veneer lifting myself. But where to do it? Creative Digital was not planning one of their excellent and revealing conferences for months (good plug!) and I had to act fast. The only HPC available in the shops at the time was the Cassiopeia and I couldn't really compare it with itself (though I tried this and concluded that it was better and worse at the same time).
Sat in my cubicle pondering this, a flyer for the PDA Expo suddenly careened off desk at the speed of light and nearly removed my eyeball. The propellant was Jessie, who'd reluctantly drawn the short straw as the day's junk-mail-distribution operative. After getting out of the ER, and snatching the offending projectile from the jaws of the incinerator, I headed down to the PDA expo (where PDAs are presumeably exposed by tabloid journalists for what they really are - the sneaky little devils!). There, after entering a 70's style halfway house known locally as the Dumpy Hotel, and parting with a substantial portion of my inheritance and stock options, I was confronted by seven different models of HPC. Excess at last!
On close inspection of the specs, they've all got Windows CE, Internet blah, blah, blah, <insert random technology waffling>, processors, RAM blah, blah inside them. So why not look at the real differentiator - sex appeal! and where better to start than at the top with the Compaq. They've got a solid name, surely they would provide technology of the sterling quality that users worldwide have come to expect. But wait am I getting double vision, or is it one of those Budweiser flashbacks they warned me about? If you put it next to the Cassiopeia, it's exactly the same except for the badge. Could this be some unholy alliance or is it a terrible mistake? Nope, apparently not! Confused and still reeling, I looked further afield. NEC and LG appeared to have followed a similar incestuous path. Phillips Velo looks more attractive and HP's device has a bigger screen. I'm desperately trying to think of a reason to mention Hitachi's effort, but I can't think of one at present. Just then, when I'm least expecting it, a "MK VII Klingon smiling teeth robot" (manufacturers representative) heavily armed with lies and statistical weapons, "decloaks" two feet from me and attempts to hypnotise me with a "Marketing Phaser" set to stun. Remembering my field training I stare vaguely into space for a few moments feigning interest and then introduce it to an unexpecting passer by. Realising how close I was to a near death experience I slip into the safety of a nearby training session to apparently learn about what Windows programming used to be like in the good old days before MFC. Foiled again!
Still unbeaten a month or so later and armed with serious intent I finally set out for CES and cleverly spent the Sunday with the other "attendee" (note the singular is used deliberately, Sunday was *not* a busy day!) to complete my Sex Appeal investigation.
After a day of wandering about and closer investigation my expectations of
mind-blowing aesthetic acrobatics are left sadly unsatitiated. The exterior design and feel of most is generally benign (except Velo), implying that they think consumers will buy them as long as they are approximately rectangular and gray. Judging by the size and the keyboard designs, we can also assume that the ergonomics team (including the intern) was busy that afternoon.
I'll admit I was expecting to be dazzled by exciting new appeal, but was confronted with limited differentiators and the fear an approaching "check box war", which doesn't really answer peoples actual needs. Cogitating on this for a little while another analogy rose through the mists of my creativity:
Heinz has 57 varieties of stuff. It all tastes like Heinz, whether its baked beans, ketchup, or oven cleaner. (This actually has something to do with the sugar content. By the way I have never tasted oven cleaner except by accident and I didn't inhale). Imagine if Heinz made 57 varieties of mushroom soup, only some used slightly different mushrooms and some have croutons, and you'd start to get the idea. Now imagine if, to make instant pocket soup, they take the mushrooms out altogether and all you're left with is high fructose corn syrup, water, and MSG. Then finally, sell it with a fork made of string.
One message seemed clear though and that was the omen of another PC market looms pendulous above our heads. Perhaps Java and the NC will act as the mythical "lady of the lake" thrusting "OS & hardware independence" like the mighty Excalibur through the troubled waters of the palmtop segement (read your King Arthur!). Maybe because we've all been there before, we'll break from the mold of Pavlov's Hamsters (or was it Hosers?). But you've got to hand it to Mr.Gates and his associates. Despite the fashion of bashing them because they're successful, they have created the industry equivalent of a single-party political system in the desk/laptop world, and it'll take the equivalent of a revolution to shake them from that particular tree. In this market the consumer decides and we all have to live with what they decide, as has been illustrated with the substantial successes and failings in the PDA segment already. Most importantly perhaps, we must remember that this is not actually the PC market, consumers are better informed than in the late eighties (alright, well maybe a little bit better informed) and that history is riddled with revolutions.
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