[cmrdporcupine]

Nobody (sane) was putting a C64 in an office.

The competitor to the Lisa didn't really exist yet. Closest would have been a Xerox Star Office system or like the other poster said, one of the various dedicated word processing / office systems like the Wang, etc. and they were even more money.

People were wedging Apple IIs into service in the office, but they weren't exactly cheap, actually, and they couldn't do much.

The IBM PC was just starting to take over here, but it clearly couldn't do what the Lisa or the Xerox Star were trying to do; WYSIWYG, etc. Visi Corp, Microsoft, and DRI were all trying to ship GUI office systems for the PC, but they hadn't made anything compelling yet.

It was another 3-4 years after this before Mac or PC systems were powerful enough to handle full GUI office automation, and another 10 before they really took over those kinds of function.

In the end though Apple (and Xerox) was grasping after a market which didn't really long term exist. The "paperless office" market and office automation didn't end up shaking out like this. MS-DOS PCs + Novell NetWare, etc. did have a niche for a bit though.

[Joel_Mckay]

PC & Apple II pfs:Write (1981) was popular, and later offered PC Lotus 1-2-3 integration.

Again, the average user was not going to buy Lisa when functional alternatives were a fraction of the price. =3

[musicale]

> Again, the average user was not going to buy Lisa when functional alternatives were a fraction of the price. =3

It's hard to find an Apple system where there were not cheap "functional" alternatives available for the "average user" at a fraction of the price. Perhaps the Apple I at $666.66? But the Apple II was twice the price (or more) of competing 8-bit systems from Commodore and Radio Shack.

The Lisa was marketed as an "office/professional" computer like the Apple III (vs. the Apple II "personal computer" – which was still much more expensive than the C64.) Compared to the Apple III ($4340-$7800 in 1980), the Lisa was not exactly overpriced - by Apple standards at least. ;-) It also included the 7 Lisa Office System apps (LisaWrite/Calc/Draw/Graph/Project/List/Terminal). At $3495 the Lisa 2 wasn't too far off from the $2495 Macintosh, which had a smaller 9" display (vs. 12" on the Lisa) and only included MacWrite and MacPaint.

As impressive a system as the MacBook Neo may be at $599 (or $499 with edu discount), it's still no $100 ChromeBook. (Though we are in a strange time when DRAM and flash storage costs are making some Apple systems surprisingly price-competitive. Sadly the $499 Mac mini is no longer available.)

[Joel_Mckay]

>Lisa was not exactly overpriced

Perhaps for a lucky few, but its relative value was unsustainable in that market condition.

We both know Jobs would have wanted more out of MacBook Neo for the users. I think the coin-sweating on modern budget-platforms like Chromebooks would have never made it past his desk. He understood brand goodwill value all too well. =3

[musicale]

> its relative value was unsustainable in that market condition

The Lisa 2 was "only" $1000 more than the ($2495) Macintosh, and included a full office software suite. Ironically though that may have been a reason why developers targeted the Mac, which only included MacWrite and MacPaint.

[Joel_Mckay]

Having fully integrated office platforms with highly limited use-cases is a laggard consumer product.

Then selling people a "cheaper version" of a bad deal tainted the branding further. Even the "free" upgrades for original Lisa owners drives was essentially telegraphing customers people had ripped them off already.

Sometimes, offering a discount on a bad deal just makes the brand damage worse. =3

[cmrdporcupine]

Yes like many companies in that era, Apple didn't really understand the value of third party developers until later and they tried to make the Lisa into a holistic closed system, a whole solution, packaging everything and leave little room for third parties.

And the copy protection & licensing was extremely strict on it, as well.