Macintosh Performa

A Macintosh Performa 5200, an all-in-one desktop, much like the iMac, which followed a few years later.

A Macintosh Performa 6300, a desktop cased model.

A Macintosh Performa 6400, one of the few Performas in a tower.

The Macintosh Performa series was Apple Computer's consumer product family of Apple Macintosh personal computers sold through department stores and mass-market retailers from 1992 until 1997, when it was superseded by the Power Macintosh 5x00 series. The Performa series was not a new line of computers, but simply renamed models from Apple's regular line of computers sold by authorized Apple resellers, such as Quadra, Centris, LC, and Power Macintosh.

Marketing theory

With a strong education market share throughout the 1990s, Apple wanted to push its computers into the home, with the idea that a child would experience the same Macintosh computer both in the home and at school, and later grow to use Macintosh computers at work.

Before the existence of the Apple Store, Apple sold computers through authorized resellers, either brick and mortar or mail order. A typical reseller sold Macintosh computers to professionals, who purchased high-level applications and required performance and expansion capabilities. Consumers, however, purchased computers based on the best value, and weren't as concerned about expansion or performance. Apple wanted to sell their computers through department store chains (such as Sears), but this would conflict with existing authorized reseller agreements, in which a geographic area had only one reseller.

To prevent these conflicts, Apple split the Macintosh line into professional and consumer models. The professional line included the Classic, LC, Centris, Quadra, and Power Macintosh lines, and continued to be sold as-is (e.g., no consumer software bundles or limited features). The consumer line included computers similar to the professional line labeled "Performa".

The Performa line was marketed differently from the professional line. To satisfy consumer-level budgets, the computers were sold bundled with home and small business applications. Most models were also bundled with a keyboard, mouse, an external modem and either a dot-29 or dot-39 pitch monitor (professional models were sold à la carte with keyboard and mouse bundles chosen by the dealer or sold separately). Software bundles usually included ClarisWorks, Quicken, a calendar/contact manager such as Touchbase and Datebook Pro, America Online, Apple's At Ease child-safe interface, educational software such as American Heritage Dictionary, The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Microsoft Bookshelf (on models equipped with a CD-Rom), Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, or Mario Teaches Typing, and games such as Spectre Challenger, Super Munchers, and Monopoly, all pre-installed over a slightly customized version of the Macintosh System software, denoted by a P in the version number (e.g., System 7.1P5).

Although the Performa models resembled their professional counterpart on the system software and hardware level, certain features were tweaked or removed. The Performa versions of the System software introduced some features that were later included in mainstream system releases, most notably the Launcher. System 7.5 ended the separate Performa releases. Many of the Performa models also lacked level-2 cache, used to speed processing of applications. When comparing between a Performa and its professional counterpart, benchmark tests favored the professional counterpart.

Marketing failure

The Performa marketing strategy failed for a number of reasons. Some blamed the failure on consumer confusion; the large number of models was intended to accommodate retailers, who could advertise that they could beat their competitors' price on equivalent models, while at the same time making sure that they didn't carry the same models as their competitors. To help, Apple created "The Martinettis Bring Home a Computer", a 30-minute infomercial about a fictional family that purchases a Performa computer.

Others claimed that people working at the stores lacked the proper training. The Performa display models were poorly taken care of; often, the computers crashed, the self-running demos were not running or the computers were not even powered on.^{[citation needed]} Apple tried to address the training issue by hiring their own sales people, most of them from Macintosh user groups, to aid the store sales staff. In spite of this, however, many returned Performa computers could not be serviced properly because the stores were not authorized Apple service centers.

However, most experts attributed the failure to retailers favoring the Microsoft Windows line, especially after the introduction of Windows 95, which was generally cheaper, and encouraged by manufacturer spiffs, advertising co-ops, and other promotion programs.

The significant number of form factors across its multiple hardware lines caused Apple to re-think its marketing strategy; the company eventually shrunk it considerably, eliminating the entire Performa line and many of the professional models in favor of a "four box" strategy comprised of a professional desktop (Blue and White G3), professional laptop (Powerbook), consumer desktop (iMac) and consumer laptop (iBook).

Criticisms

Critics of the Performa line, including some Mac users, argued that it was generally underpowered relative to higher-end Mac models. Some critics cited the large and confusing array of different Performa models, some differentiated only by the hard drive size or the software bundle (such as the Performa 475 and 476). The Performa 5200 was named by LowEndMac as the worst Macintosh ever made, owing to the severely cut-down hardware designs introduced during Michael Spindler's tenure as Apple CEO.

Macintosh-to-Performa comparison

Reference:

Performa system	Equivalent Macintosh system (with RAM/HDA/VRAM configuration)	Introduction date
Performa 200	Macintosh Classic II, 4/80	August 19, 1992
Performa 250	Macintosh Color Classic
Performa 275	Macintosh Color Classic II
Performa 400	Macintosh LC II, 4/80/512	August 15, 1992
Performa 405	Macintosh LC II, 4/80/256, modem, .39 RGB	April 15, 1993
Performa 430	Macintosh LC II, 4/120/512, modem, .39 RGB	April 15, 1993
Performa 450	Macintosh LC III, 4/120/512, modem, .29 RGB	April 15, 1993
Performa 600	Macintosh IIvx w/out RAM cache, 4/160/512, FPU socket	September 15, 1992
Performa 600CD	Macintosh IIvx w/out RAM cache, 5/160/1, CD300i, FPU socket	September 15, 1992
Performa 410	Macintosh LC II, 4/80/512, modem, .39 RGB	October 21, 1993
Performa 460	Macintosh LC III, 33 MHz, 4/80/512, modem, .39 RGB	October 21, 1993
Performa 466, 467	Macintosh LC III, 33 MHz, 4/160/512, modem, .29 RGB	October 21, 1993
Performa 475	Macintosh LC 475, 4/160/512, modem, .29 RGB	October 21, 1993
Performa 476	Macintosh LC 475, 4/230/512, modem, .29 RGB	October 21, 1993
Performa 550, 560	Macintosh LC 520, 5/160/768, modem, CD, Trinitron	October 21, 1993
Performa 575	Macintosh LC 575, 5/250/1 MB, modem, CD, Trinitron	April 26, 1994
Performa 577	Macintosh LC 575, 5/320/1 MB, modem, CD, Trinitron	April 26, 1994
Performa 578	Macintosh LC 575, 8/320/1 MB, modem, CD, Trinitron	April 26, 1994
Performa 580CD	Macintosh LC 580
Performa 630	Macintosh LC 630, Macintosh Quadra 630	July 1, 1994
Performa 640 DOS Compatible	Macintosh LC 630 DOS Compatible
Performa 5200	Power Macintosh 5200 LC
Performa 5300	Power Macintosh 5300
Performa 6200/6300	Power Macintosh 6200, Power Macintosh 6300
Performa 6360	Power Macintosh 6300/160
Performa 6400	Power Macintosh 6400

External links

• List of Performa and equivalent models
• Mac Performa flat top 475 (LC 475)
• Mactracker - information on every Mac, Mac clone, and Apple products.