Keyboard Builders' Digest / Keyboard Spotting
Osborne Executive
The Osborne Executive portable computer was widely blamed for the company's subsequent bankruptcy.
Published February 21, 2022
As the successor of the Osborne 1 portable computer – considered to be the first commercially successful portable (luggable) computer, released on April 3, 1981 – the Osborne Executive (wiki) was announced early 1983.
While the Osborne 1 was not just the first one but also sought-after and widely imitated (e.g. Kaypro II, Compaq Portable, IBM 5155), the Executive wrote history in a different sense.
It is the computer that created the Osborne Effect, where hyping your next product kills sales for your current product because customers choose to wait.
The Osborne Computer Corporation took more than a year to make the Executive available after it was announced, thus customers canceled or deferred orders for the current, "soon-to-be-obsolete" product. The company's subsequent bankruptcy was widely blamed on reduced sales after the announcement.
To give the jazzy $2,495 Osborne Executive a running start, Adam [Osborne, designer] began orchestrating publicity early in 1983. We, along with many other magazines, were shown the machine in locked hotel rooms. We were required not to have anything in print about it until the planned release date in mid-April. As far as we know, nothing did appear in print, but dealers heard about the plans and cancelled orders for the Osborne 1 in droves. In early April, Osborne told dealers he would be showing them the machine on a one-week tour the week of 17 April, and emphasized that the new machine was not a competitor for the Osborne 1. But dealers didn't react the way Osborne expected; said Osborne, "All of them just cancelled their orders for the Osborne 1" (source).
Laying off hundreds of workers and slashing the suggested retail price of the Osborne 1 from $1995 to $1295, then to $995 didn't help either. "For several months sales were practically non-existent."
5 months after the official announcement, on September 10 that year, OCC filed for bankruptcy.
Otherwise, the Executive was a collection of the good features from the Osborne 1 and fixed some of its predecessor's flaws. You could have it (originally) for US$2,495, and it came with application software like the WordStar word processor, SuperCalc spreadsheet, and the CBASIC and MBASIC programming languages – the leading applications at the time.
Published on Mon 21st Feb 2022. Featured in KBD #66 (source).
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