3 ms·

How is this specific to laptops? Seems like just the same would apply to a desktop computer.

lukifer 14y ago
I had the same thought. My presumption would be that laptops are inherently personal, since the whole point is to take it with you, whereas you could hand off a desktop to an underling and make them work it for you.
- csense 14y ago
  From the article, it sounds like the laptop marketers were targeting top executives, presumably because (1) they travel a lot and (2) they have command of a big enough budget to spend $8K of company money on a tech toy. For those who don't travel, it would have been difficult to justify the greater expense.
masklinn 14y ago
I'm guessing desktops were significantly cheaper, and could therefore start from the bottom where people were younger, didn't really care or had other issues (and didn't have secretaries to start with). The price of early laptops meant only higher-up execs were able to get them, and those were generally older men who had had secretaries most of their life (or who had just had secretaries attached to them, these secretaries becoming a status symbol of having "made it")
njharman 14y ago
First (business) desktop computers (I'm guessing / basing on my knowledge from back then, visacalc!) weren't targeted at execs. They were target at accounting who were use to 10key and probably one of the early adopters of mainframes+terminals.
primitur 14y ago
Good point. Well what I think, in the very first marketing round about laptops in the 80's, the big pitch was portability, and that mean: flights. Most "portable computers" in that era were for flying around the country, they had to be built for check-in. And who takes flights around the country? Executives. The secretaries have their computers on their desktop, they stay at home. So the computer had to be pitched as useful, somehow, to an Executive traveller.. There was really a sort of division about the very expensive computers being something you took with you instead of locked at home at the office, at the very beginning, but nowadays of course usability has demolished the cultural head and we've all got mega-buck$ invested in our thin, delicate slabs.
joezydeco 14y ago
It certainly did. I convinced my dad to buy an Apple ][ for the family, primarily by demonstrating VisiCalc to him. He caught on right away, but it was painful watching him hunt-and-peck on the keyboard for years while he started to learn to type.

I had the same thought. My presumption would be that laptops are inherently personal, since the whole point is to take it with you, whereas you could hand off a desktop to an underling and make them work it for you.

csense 14y ago
From the article, it sounds like the laptop marketers were targeting top executives, presumably because (1) they travel a lot and (2) they have command of a big enough budget to spend $8K of company money on a tech toy. For those who don't travel, it would have been difficult to justify the greater expense.

masklinn 14y ago

I'm guessing desktops were significantly cheaper, and could therefore start from the bottom where people were younger, didn't really care or had other issues (and didn't have secretaries to start with). The price of early laptops meant only higher-up execs were able to get them, and those were generally older men who had had secretaries most of their life (or who had just had secretaries attached to them, these secretaries becoming a status symbol of having "made it")

njharman 14y ago

First (business) desktop computers (I'm guessing / basing on my knowledge from back then, visacalc!) weren't targeted at execs. They were target at accounting who were use to 10key and probably one of the early adopters of mainframes+terminals.

primitur 14y ago

Good point. Well what I think, in the very first marketing round about laptops in the 80's, the big pitch was portability, and that mean: flights. Most "portable computers" in that era were for flying around the country, they had to be built for check-in. And who takes flights around the country? Executives. The secretaries have their computers on their desktop, they stay at home. So the computer had to be pitched as useful, somehow, to an Executive traveller.. There was really a sort of division about the very expensive computers being something you took with you instead of locked at home at the office, at the very beginning, but nowadays of course usability has demolished the cultural head and we've all got mega-buck$ invested in our thin, delicate slabs.

joezydeco 14y ago

It certainly did. I convinced my dad to buy an Apple ][ for the family, primarily by demonstrating VisiCalc to him. He caught on right away, but it was painful watching him hunt-and-peck on the keyboard for years while he started to learn to type.