September 13, 1983 Osborne Computer filed for bankruptcy and the story is important for at least two reasons.
The first is that this is the company he had made the first personal computer of some success. His name was Osborne 1, from the name of the founder, Adam Osborne: he was an editor of computer magazines, born in Bangkok but of British origins; he had moved to California, where he attended the legendary Homebrew Computer Club, a club of nerds based in Menlo Park (where Facebook is today) which in the 1970s played a pivotal role in shaping Silicon Valley culture. At some point Osborne must have thought it was time to launch his startup: the first computer came out in April 1981 and was a success. It cost $ 1795 including software and Byte Magazine listed it as one of its favorites. At peak times they sold 10,000 a month, to the point that production struggled to keep up with demand.
But the competition at the time was fierce, as we know: Apple and IBM, but not only them, were launching other successful PCs. And here Adam Osborne made such a glaring mistake that he became an archetype, the Osborne Effect, repeated over time by other notable companies, including Nokia and Microsoft. This is the second reason why today’s anniversary is important. For the Osborne Effect: it consists in talking too soon about the next, fabulous, upcoming product, with the result of sinking the sales of the product already on the market. This is what happened in 1983. Adam Osborne announced the next model – which was much better – a year early and orders for the Osborrne 1 were canceled en masse, dropping the company’s balance sheet. In fact, the failure of Osborne, it was later ascertained, is also due to other causes, such as mismanagement, but the expression Osborne Effect has remained.
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