Microcomputer marketing: act III

The decrease in microcomputer sales in the mid-1980s led to the development of new marketing strategies, and mail-order advertising has become an effective way to sell microcomputers. Borland International's 1989 direct mail campaign was designed to let users trade their Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets for Borland's Quattro spreadsheet. Borland's sales force was smaller than Lotus' sales force, but Borland was able to compete with Lotus by selling 300,000 copies of Quattro through direct mail. Computer Shopper, a microcomputer mail-order catalog, allowed overstocked microcomputer manufacturers to sell the oversupply of microcomputers they had as a result of the slowdown in the computer industry.
MICROCOMPUTER MARKETING: ACT III A severe slowdown rocked the microcomputer industry in 1986. Inventories were up, sales were down, operating expenses in every phase of the business were rising and [...]