Word: retail
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...effort to get IBM out of a slump that had hit it in the late 1970s, Opel soon started shaking things up. The company began opening retail stores, not only to sell such staples as electric typewriters, but also to position it for a move into the fast-expanding personal computer field. In 1980 top management secretly gave the go-ahead to an engineering team, cloistered at a plant in Boca Raton, Fla., to begin designing a small computer (the project was code-named Acorn). Twelve months later, the PC was rolling off the production line. Breaking with tradition...
Some 400,000 copies of VisiCalc have been sold (retail price: $200 and up, depending on the version), making it the hottest piece of software, other than games, ever produce for the personal computer. It is also probably the most widely pirated and imitated (the rip-offs are nicknamed "VisiClones" and "CalcAlikes"). Sighs Bricklin: "I suppose if imitation is flattery, we've been flattered quite a bit." Headquartered in a refurbished chocolate factory in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, Mass., Bricklin's firm, Software Arts, now has more than 80 employees, as many computer terminals as phones...
...Model III ($999). Back in 1978, Radio Shack, Commodore and Apple had the field to themselves, and Tandy-Radio Shack, with its nationwide chain of retail outlets, had more of the field than anyone else. A sturdy word-and number-crunching machine, the "Trash-80," as it is affectionately known, seemed to have a lock on the corner computer market. By year's end there were 300,000 Model Ills in place. But the company has been overtaken by less stodgy competitors, and last year Tandy's share of the mid-range market fell from...
...news about Atari arrived with other grim tidings for the industry. Mattel said that it expected to lose money during the fourth quarter, even though it was shipping more of its heavily advertised Intellivision games than it did a year ago. The company blamed a softening retail market and higher marketing costs that resulted from increased competition. After Mattel's shares began dropping, trading was suspended for more than 1½ days...
Despite the financial community's reaction to individual stocks, sales for the industry are still robust. Video games have been among the bestselling items this season in the face of generally flabby retail sales. Says Leisure Industries Analyst David Londoner of Wall Street's Wertheim & Co.: "We don't think the market for cartridges will peak until 1984 or 1985." But Londoner adds, "I don't think the stock market will continue to be enraptured by video games." While millions of Americans will still be looking for a Donkey Kong or Frogger game under their trees...