Besides, Kay was benefiting from something better than advertising: the articles of friendly writers. And why not? Writing was just another form of word processing—a category for which most Kaypro owners had bought their machines. Certainly the Selectric-style keyboard and 80-column screen had impressed me. Peter McWilliams, the very same writer who had led[led] the cheering in the micro magazines for the Osborne, was a Kaypro convert. “Put simply, as a personal computer, the Kaypro II is superior to the Osborne 1 in almost every detail,” he wrote—“yet it retails for the same $1,795. As David Letterman might say, ‘Unbelievable!’” James Fallows, the Washington editor of the Atlantic Monthly, free-lancing for TV Guide, called the Kaypro “the best value” for “complicated accounting” or “heavy-duty word processing.” I was used to seeing hype in and out of computer magazines for inferior products. The Kaypro, however, deserved the paeans. Granted, I didn’t like Perfect Writer, a word processor included between 1982 and early 1984; and the sharpness of the monitor was no match for some more expensive machines[machines]. The Kaypro wasn’t the best computer, period. But at the time Fallows praised the Kaypro to the millions of TV Guide readers, it may well have been the best dollar-for-dollar value. Fallows himself didn’t own a Kaypro. He honestly reached his conclusion unassisted by a special offer from Kaypro: 40 percent discounts for writers; the company said—convincingly or not—that it didn’t attach any strings.
As production increased, Kaypro finally did trot out national advertisements. One, in Esquire, showed a young Kaypro user in an office swept by a fierce wind, blowing coworkers’ papers away and tousling his hair, while he was typing happily away with his chair and desk raised a foot off the floor, “KAYPRO RISES TO THE OCCASION,” said the advertisement. I didn’t really see the point. The technical specs were buried in small print at the bottom of the page; why couldn’t the ad tell me in large print and simple language what the Kaypro could do? A Kaypro staffer said the ad was to build name recognition. Then the company might unleash a campaign portraying its steel ugly duckling as the Volkswagen of small computers. It seemed a sensible-enough idea. Then, again, it was another indication that the computer business was becoming more like Detroit—selling not only economy but the image of economy.
Finally, the new ads came out. In simple, helpful language they told novices what to look for in a small business computer. And yet you could hardly confuse the ads’ goals with Consumer Reports'. The ads for beginners recommended consulting with an expert before choosing a machine; at the same time ads in sophisticated magazines like Byte asked computer pros to suggest the Kaypro to beginners. (“Once you tell people about the complete business computer for $1,595,” said an ad appearing after the Kays lowered the price $200, “they’ll probably stop bugging you with a lot of questions.”)
The public relations campaign was just as slick. No one lied. But Hill & Knowlton, the fast-track public relations agency, laced its Kaypro releases with quotes skillfully reflecting the computer makers’ self-interest. In one, David Kay said, “If it isn’t portable, it doesn’t pay to buy it.” That was hyperbole, pure and simple.
The nine-inch screen, for instance, was a major improvement over the Osborne, and it was entirely right for an economy portable from which many buyers would eventually trade up, anyway; but writers and other heavy-duty users might prefer a twelve-incher from the very start. For not much more than the Kaypro at the time of the release, you could buy a desktop computer called the Morrow Micro Decision with good software and a twelve-inch screen. Milton Viorst, a Washington journalist, couldn’t stomach the Kaypro monitor. He considered the Kaypro the kind of machine you might tote back and forth between home and the beach but not the best for heavy-duty viewing. He bought the Morrow, or two, actually: one for himself and one for his wife, Judith, a well-known poet and magazine writer. However pro-Kaypro, I could see why. The Kaypro, strictly speaking, wasn’t even portable; instead, it was transportable. Unless you were a 300-pound tackle playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, you weren’t about to tote a sharp-edged, 26-pound computer and battery pack as casually as you would an attaché case.
Other “feature information” from Hill & Knowlton in spring 1983 offered more tips for computer shoppers in a way cunningly designed to steer them to the Kaypro without the customers’ quite knowing what was going on.
“KAYPRO Division of Non-Linear Systems” appeared on the first page in big blue letters above the text. But the seven-page “feature information”—the part intended for publication—mentioned the computer by name just once and in an inconspicuous location. It laid out the specs for a good portable. Then, several hundred words after the Kaypro mention, it triumphantly concluded, “For as little as $1,795, you can already buy the only fully portable personal computer with a full-sized screen, one that offers large enough memory capacity to handle business, entertainment and educational programming and a service network that’s available anytime or anyplace—just like the optimal portable personal computer itself.” I recalled the canned releases from food companies that women’s pages ran verbatim. How many newspapers and magazines would do the same with “feature information” from Kaypro? David and his father had made a good machine. And yet I wondered how many manufacturers of bad computers might start using similar tactics. Joel Strasser, at the time the Hill & Knowlton man handling Kaypro, later protested that he was engaging in standard public relations practice, but his remarks simply dramatized how the welfare of shoppers might clash with that of the manufacturers. Disguised puffery was hardly in keeping with David Kay’s portrayal of himself as a consumer advocate.
Around the time the Kays were calling in high-powered public relations people, Adam Osborne himself went a step further. In January 1983 he hired a professional manager to be Osborne Computer’s president, Robert Jaunich II, formerly president of Consolidated Foods. Osborne would later blame Jaunich for many of the computer firm’s problems, telling a reporter that Jaunich wasn’t fleet-footed enough for a young company in an industry with a fast-changing market.
Jaunich’s recollections would differ. Recalling the discoveries he made during the audit before the never-to-take-place public offering of Osborne stock, he told the Wall Street Journal, “Every day you came in, the numbers got worse. Every number you touched went soft.” He blamed the corporate chaos on Adam Osborne. “The real message,” said Jaunich, who resigned as Osborne president in December 1983, “is the professional people got here too late to help.”
Osborne was also critical of another executive; he accused him of cutting a deal with a supplier—while still working at Osborne Computer—to make a rival machine. Whatever happened, the internal squabbles at Osborne may have wasted time and energy that he and colleagues could better have devoted to their battle against the Kaypro.