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“Every brand manager wants to sell product,” said Goldberg.

“Yeah,” Whitfield agreed, as he replaced his cigarette with a strip of bubble gum and continued to enlighten Goldberg about the ways of Apple. “At Apple there’s a fundamental disagreement. Dali’s job is to sell product but others want to sell image and the idea that a computer is more than just a computer. Going to nineteen ninety-five we were overpriced. We were selling an overpriced machine. Suddenly there was IBM, and suddenly there was Osborne who was saying, ‘We’re going to give you more than Apple for seventeen ninety-five.’ Then we featured price and said, ‘Hi, Mr. Dealer! We love you so much we’re going to take eight percent out of your hide.’”

“What are the corporate objectives?” asked Goldberg.

“To reestablish Apple as not being behind in technology,” answered Whitfield. “We’re hung up in our own underwear. The perception is we’re out here peddling old machinery. We’ve got to show Apple is back on the track. People don’t know where we’re going and we don’t have enough advertising dollars to beat them over the head with it. They’ve heard all the rumors: ‘Gosh, they’re out of date. They’re late with new products.’ We’ve got to reinforce the impression that Apple’s out there with a full line of products.”

“By announcing and making hoopla out of the interface, you run a major risk of hurting the Two and the Three,” Goldberg said.

“We’ve got to show that Apple is the computer company,” Maurice Goldman added. “The unwashed masses don’t know the difference between eight and sixteen bits, much less between a mouse and a green screen.”

“Price isn’t the news,” Whitfield repeated. “The customer doesn’t know whether price is a good price.”

“Technology is the news,” Folley suggested tentatively.

Whitfield embarked on a sudden diversion. “I’ve been looking at the dealer numbers,” he said. “IBM is getting so friggin’ smart. They’ve got four hundred ninety-five outlets now. They’ve been adding them like crazy. We’ve only got four hundred ninety good dealers. IBM only went to the guys who didn’t have a history of discounting. The Computerland dealers wouldn’t think of selling an Apple. What we should do is buy a dealer, buy fifty truckloads of IBMs, load ’em up and sell ’em for five hundred dollars and bust their price level. We need two lawyers sniffing down their throats to catch ’em price fixing.” He caught his breath. “IBM has no high risk in this marketplace.”

Goldberg returned doggedly to the issue of price. “We’ve got hundreds of millions tied up in the image. If we sell on price we’re selling equity. We’re selling the franchise.”

“Apple makes money on the boxes,” Whitefield emphasized. “Our strategy is for accessories, peripherals, and software to take lower margins.”

“Then there are dealers who discount the box,” objected Folley.

“Like Billy Ladin,” said Goldman.

“Who is he?” asked Goldberg.

“Billy Ladin’s this dealer in Texas,” explained Goldman. “He’s got something like four stores and he sells goldfish.”

“Goldfish?” asked Goldberg who was baffled.

“Yeah,” said Goldman. “Goldfish. He says, ‘I’ll give the goldfish away for nothing. The little boy runs home and in an hour he’s back with five bucks from his mom and then I’ll sell him the bowl, the gravel, and the food.’”

Returning to the problems posed by the introduction of the new computers, Whitfield remarked, “We have an image that we’re a one-shot company. We want to be your personal computer company. We’re not just selling Lisa. If it was my company, I’d be saying this interface is the greatest thing since sliced bananas and all the others are obsolete. I’d be hitting every city in the country with seminars. We were going to announce Lisa and ship. But now we cannot. We’ve been burned so many times at Apple that I know that’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to slip. Then rumors will get out that Mac’s a cheap version of Lisa and people will be saying why should we buy a Two or a Three when we can wait a few months and buy a Mac.”

“We want to