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Kinko Defecto Hurto (8/6/98)
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Several of you wrote in to ask why AtAT hadn't yet addressed what Mac the Knife calls a "key defection" from the Macintosh Way. We speak, of course, of the ubiquitous and once-quirky Kinko's copy shops, and the rumors that they have decided to eliminate all Macs from their service departments over the course of the next couple of years. The reason we hadn't mentioned it thus far is because we were hoping for an official denial from Kinko's themselves, but since none has yet materialized, it seems that this rumor may just be true after all.
According to the whispers around the water cooler, all Macs at the 850 Kinko's full-service locations will be phased out and Windows systems will be brought in to replace them. The truly scary bit is that apparently Kinko's plans to install a "combination of Adobe and Microsoft publishing tools" on each machine. (You can almost hear the simultaneous résumé-updating at service bureaus worldwide, as staff there decide that they'd rather switch careers than have to deal with the possibility of more jobs coming in that were authored in Microsoft Publisher. Eeeeyuuwwww.)
What really kills us about this rumored decision is that there's never been a better time for Kinko's to start adding more Macs to its service departments. The iMac seems almost made for Kinko's, despite its consumer leanings; stick a few on some empty desks and plug them into the store's Ethernet network, plug in some Imation Superdisks and USB Zip drives, upgrade the RAM to 96 MB or so and the VRAM to 4MB in each, and you've got some fairly rockin' DTP terminals for all of $1900 or less. Those, plus a few full-fledged Power Mac G3's with large monitors, should be a stunning combination. If you feel that Kinko's is making a big mistake in deciding to eliminate all of its Macs, stay tuned to this channel, because over the weekend we'll be posting a petition you can sign to make your voice heard.
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SceneLink (915)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/6/98 episode: August 6, 1998: As the iMac prepares for its grand entrance from stage left, some new, zippier Macs are ready to make a quiet entrance at roughly the same time. Meanwhile, Microsoft culls a strategy from the kindergarten playbook and enacts the "I saw it first" defense, and rumors of a Kinko's defection to Windows and Microsoft Publisher leave terrified service bureaus cringing in fear...
Other scenes from that episode: 913: Early on the Set (8/6/98) Apparently the supply of Power Mac G3's is drying up faster than Apple ever expected. Whoops! Guess that's what happens when you take a fantabulous product that's already in fairly short supply, stop making any new ones, and then issue price cuts so generous they serve as a great learning example for fledgling home appliance salesmen who need to learn the meaning of the phrase "insanely low prices."... 914: Desperate Tactics (8/6/98) The drama of "Redmond Justice II" continues, as Microsoft argues that it had the idea for an Internet browser long before its rival Netscape even existed. Extensive details may be found in a New York Times article. Ignoring for a second whether or not Microsoft did come up with the idea for a browser first, we're not entirely sure we see the logic in this argument anyway...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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