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The End Of An Error (7/10/00)
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Poor Mike Dell... the man tries so hard, you know? Every morning he awakes from his happy Steve dreams, gets up and kneels in his Steve shrine, prays to the Steves That Be to grant him the Steveness to get through the day, eats a hearty breakfast of toast and Steve-ios ("The Breakfast of Steves!"), and sets out to the office where he'll spend the day trying like mad to make Dell as cool as Apple is. Unfortunately, his single biggest initiative towards that end has just wound to a whimpering close: the WebPC has just been put out of its misery.
That's right; the WebPC, Dell's vainglorious attempt to tap into the iMac's smash-hit paradigm of "make it cool, make it sleek, give 'em a choice of colors, and get 'em on the 'net" has officially been axed. Faithful viewers Jay Forde and Joshua Weiland both broke the news by pointing out a CNET article on Dell's failure. If, for some odd reason, that's not enough evidence for you (or if you just want to do a little tap-dancing on graves), just try to load the WebPC site-- and find yourself staring at a giant "WE'RE SORRY" instead.
See, this is what happens when "beige" thinkers try to get stylish. CNET enumerates various attempts by other manufacturers to ride Apple's technicolor coattails to success, and it reads like a laundry list of mediocrity. Gateway's butt-ugly Astro? "Not promoted nearly as heavily as Gateway's standard PCs." Packard Bell's attempts at an all-in-one? "The company has since gone under." Hilariously (if not more than a little predictably), CNET takes these failures as "a strong indication that the coming revolution in style and color... may have been a bit exaggerated." Pssst... Hey, guys... that particular revolution happened almost two years ago and it's still going strong. It's called Apple's product line, post-August 15th, 1998. It's also called originality instead of jumping on the bandwagon. Look into it. As for Mike Dell, cheer up, Buckaroo! Those iBook-wannabe Inspirons are still selling, right?
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SceneLink (2405)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 7/10/00 episode: July 10, 2000: It's baaa-aack-- that wonderful Disney-Apple buyout rumor you all know and love. Meanwhile, Dell "retires" the WebPC citing slow sales, and a pulled report on Apple's new G4 illustrates the fundamental importance of timely surfing when trolling for inside info...
Other scenes from that episode: 2404: "This Time, For Sure!" (7/10/00) Woo-hoo!! Nothing, and we mean nothing, gets our blood pumping like when somebody grabs a tired old rumor off the shelf, dusts it off, and parades it around like the Next Big Thing™-- especially when the rumor in question involves Steve Jobs in a pair of big round mouse ears. Yes, folks, in case you haven't heard yet, the Rumor That Wouldn't Die is back with a vengeance; once again, wide-eyed sources speculate in hushed tones about that holiest of holy grails, the sacred Disney-Apple buyout... 2406: You Snooze, You Lose (7/10/00) Ooooh, we just love a mystery. Given that Mac OS Rumors has lately taken to updating its content on a... somewhat infrequent basis, we admit we're not as rabid about checking that site as we once were...
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