The Daily Times from Mamaroneck, New York • 63

SECTION Mark Stevens H2 Louis Rukeyser H3 Marketing H3 Stocks H4 tfone Bryant Quinn H11 i v-' v. '4 a2Z fca AT LARGE BY GEOFFREY THOMPSON Burger beef: Wheres the labor pool? IF Computer dealers battle slump with discounts, service GametVRobert F. Rodriguez Kobrin Dote Cruz, a salesman at The Computer Store in White Plains, sssists customer Barbara Braceland-Weed on how tq operate an Apple lie personal computer By Peter Costa Staff Writer $2,000 can go a long way in today market UST a year ago, the road to financial 1 1 success was paved with floppy disks, ni I Retailers could not get enough personal computers to sell to a crazed, I-have-to-have-one-tomorrow consumer market. By Kevin Maney Staff Writer Now, personal computers, at least in the home market, have lost their allure and retailers are worried. Sales are very down.

Its down to nothing. Theres not even a fly coming in here. There is no comparison to the way things were a year ago, says Andy Curloss, sales manager at A World of Computers in Port Chester. Other computer stores in the area said they were also experiencing a sales slump but expected sales to improve after the doldrums of summer are over. ISSION: Find a personal computer system including software, letter-quality I printer and two disk drives at a Westchester County computer store, all costing about $2,000.

Impossible? Two years ago, absolutely. Last year, it couldve been done, but not without buying suspect equipment from companies long since -wiped off the map of the computer industry. But now, legitimate, full-fledged computing power has slid down to an affordable price for many professionals and small business people. Home computer sales for all of 1985 are projected to total 3.5 million units, down from 4.2 million computers in 1984 and 4.4 million in 1983, according to Software Access, a market research firm in Mountain View, Calif. URTHER evidence of the growing problem of finding enough workers to fill low-paying jobs in Westchester and adjacent Fairfield has surfaced.

The latest and most revealing bit of news on the subject comes out of Connecticut It seems fast-food champion McDonalds is having major problems finding workers to staff some of its new restaurants along the Connecticut Turnpike (Interstate 95). The situation is so bad that the operators of two of the locations along the heavily traveled highway are importing 200 workers from the Bronx each day just to keep the locations functioning. McDonalds took over the 10 service area restaurants along the turnpike only last May. With considerable fanfare the company reopened the series of restaurants at five different locations that for years had been limping along under the Howard Johnson's banner. MCDONALDS invested more than $12 million on the renovation job and has promised to pay the state of Connecticut $3.5 million a year for each of the next 10 years for the exclusive right to the food operations on the roadway.

Considering that there are 85,000 travelers a month to draw on as customers, it shouldnt be too hard for the company to recoup its investment, pay the state and make a profit On the Connecticut Turnpike alone, McDonald's is expecting to sell 3,200 hamburgers, 10,200 soft drinks and 44,000 chicken McNuggets a day. McDonalds move into the turnpike tkn is just part of a new overall strategy providing its food services for semi-captive audiences. For example, it already has a couple of the restaurant franchises on the New Jersey Turnpike, and it is intent on getting the food consessions at zoos, recreational areas and even military bases. BUT IF the experiences it is having in the early going on 1-95 are any indication of what it can expect in taking on these locations, the strategy may have to be re-evaluated. At the Connecticut Turnpike locations the pay being offered is $4 an hour, a bit above the minimum wage of $3.77.

On opening day McDonald's said it would employ 1,500 workers at the 10 restaurants. What a boost to the local economy, right? Wrong. Two months later the company has given up on getting enough workers locally and has vans cruising back and forth daily to the Bronx transporting in the help it requires. Location is the primary reason for whats happening. The McDonalds with the most critical labor shortage problem is at Darien, a community that is not known for being packed with unemployed workers ready to jump at a chance for a job at McDonalds.

THE AREA around Darien regularly reports the nations lowest unemployment rate. This ignores the toy-department computers. Companies such as Commodore and Atari have sold flimsy home computers for $500 or less for several years in mass retail stores such as Toys Us and mart But those machines have limited capabilities. Amazingly enough, one can now find for less than $1,500 computers that at least approach the capabilities of the machine by which all others are compared: IBM Personal Computer. In fact zb IBM PC with two disk drives and 1 monitor can now be found for around $1,900.

It long rode up in the $2,500 range. But adding a letter-quality printer the cheapest of which costs $600 and even one word processing program priced anywhere from $150 to $400 puts the system way out of the $2,000 For most professional or small business users, minimum needs usually include: program for a little over The salesman there left the specific price open for negotiation at sales time. The lie has a reputation as more of a family-oriented computer than a business computer, but with the added disk drive it has most of the power and capabilities of any other machine in its price, range. The Brother printer and PFS Write program are adequate, proven products. One advantage of the He: More commercial software, free public domain software (software written by hobbyists and available through computer clubs), users groups and computer bulletin boards exist for the Apple II computer line than any other, says Eric Arnum, computer industry analyst for International Resource Development Inc.

in Norwalk. Further, he notes that Apple, unlike many computer makers, is likely to survive the next five years to supply parts and service. Kaypro Business Pak Available at The Computer Corner in White Plains, Kaypro Business Pak probably represents the current best deal in personal computers. For a set price of $1,895. the package starts off with a Kaypro 2X computer, which includes two disk drives each the same capacity as the Apple He's disk drives, though the computer contains four times the internal capacity as the He.

The 2X a luggable computer that can be snapped Kaypro 2X together and carried around like a suitcase also has a built-in monochrome monitor. But as they say on late-night TV: Wait! Theres more! The $1,895 includes the Kaypro Letter Quality Printer, which is manufactured by Juki, a proven Japanese company. It also includes some expensive software Kaypro says it is $3,000 worth: Wordstar (the top professional word Please see LONG WAY on page H2 There are many theories as to why the personal computer has failed to win a permanent and growing place in the home individual market The most prominent theory is that people have been disappointed in what computers really can da It is as if consumers have pulled back the curtain and discovered that not only is there no digital wizard of Oz, but that the machine making the wizard sounds has personality problems. The microcomputer is fairly difficult to 1 operate. You have to tell it exactly what to do or it will just sit there and send back insistent question marks each time you pressed a wrong key.

And personal computers can be diffident and noncommunicative. Some computers can talk to one member of their family but cannot link up with different brands of computers. The phrase you cant compare Apples with oranges has taken on a new irony. Even the much-vaunted claim that the computer would revolutionize education at home proved to be just one more unfulfilled promise. Educators found that only 1 in 10 educational software programs combined the best of computer technology with innovative text material.

Most other programs were just pages on a disk. The prediction that every home would have a computer also proved premature. Only 8 percent of Americans have a computer in their hones, and of that group, only 23 percent use them every day. In order to survive in this new environment, more and more area retailers are discovering that not only must they offer mega-discounts on computer hardware and software but they must do a lot of pro- and post-sale hand holding. The market is a bit more saturated as far as discounts are concerned, so basically youre dealing with volume.

Because of the discounts, we have to sell two units to make the same kind of money we made selling one unit last year," says Robert Johansen, sales manager of Computer Center in New Rochelle. Computer Center, which has a sales force of 16, also has a store, in Nanuet s' Enough internal memory usually 128K to handle a complex word processing program like Wordstar or a financial spreadsheet program. Also, two disk drives that makes it easier and faster to work with the computer, especially when copying files or programs. Letter quality printer. While dot matrix printers are much cheaper and make readable printouts, only letter-quality printers are suited for business correspondence and reports.

For graphics, one might need to buy a plotter, which is yet more expensive. Professional software. Some systems on the market come with an array of programs. Others include none, and software costs can add up fast As for computer shopping, there are at least 100 computer dealers listed in the Yellow Pages of the Westchester-Putnam telephone directory, but most every major computer manufacturer is represented by the half-dozen computer stores in downtown White Plains. Four systems came out as viable choices in the $2,000 range: Johansen says the key to selling personal computers is agressiveness.

Anyone can be a box merchant. Were not looking to do that, were a servce and support company. More than ever, you Apple lie The Computer Store in White Plains will package Apple Computer Co.s lie with a lie monitor and stand, plus a second disk drive (the lie cones with one drive), a Brother letter-quality printer and the PFS Write word processing Please see BYTE on page H2 BIG SEALS recently it was a miniscule 2.9 percent, less than half the national average. Opening up service job opportunities at near minimum wage are not exactly what the community needs. Yet that is what it is getting precisely because of its own affluence.

Affluent populations use services like restaurants. Service businesses open, service jobs are created. But the individual local communities dont staff them. Darien, and dozens of other communities in Fairfield and Westchester counties, arent going to provide the labor to work at minimum wage job? in their own restaurants and other services. By economic definition they are incapable of doing so.

How about local teen-agers? As a friend sarcastically put it Muffy and Biff may eat at McDonald's, but they arent going to work there. So these communities are forced to turn to neighboring communities for this form of labor. Until now, pretty much, there has been a sufficient labor pool there to draw on. But, as the McDonalds turnpike case points up, around Darien the labor well is dry. FOR THE Darien area, turning to Stamford or Bridgeport doesnt seem to be enough anymore.

In parts of Westchester, the same thing is happening. Yonkers and Mount Vernon may not have enough minimum wage workers to fill Central Avenues needs let alone that of White Plains. The next step appears to be turning to the Bronx. Westchester hotels are already recruiting workers there and busing them in to make beds and do other housekeeping jobs. Other businesses are probably doing the same, and more will undoubtedly follow suit The Bronx is on its way to becoming what Mexican cities are to their counterparts immediately across in UA border the source of cheap labor for affluent locations nearby.

The big problem will come if the Bronx ever starts to upscale. Will workers then be flown in to Westchester and Fairfield for the day from the Deep South or the Caribbean? It just may be. Geoffrey Tkonaptom is boslaeunol estate editor of the Gamaett Westekester Newtpopen. Manhattan firm gets slow goods moving with barter exchange By Lasts Cordil Staff Writer COMPUTER manufacturer has excess 1 equipment it wants to unload because the high-technology hardware is now outdated. A cosmetics company wants to introduce a new lipstick line but doesnt want to lose money on excess inventory of the old stock.

A Caribbean country wants to build tourism and promote homemade products but doesn't know how to obtain the right media exposure in markets that will coun most. Pleas see DEALS on page H10 GwmettRotart F. Rodriguez Richard Manney with collection of art objects at office of The Mediators Inc. in Manhattan.