Computers: The Year of the Mouse

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Although IBM does not offer a machine that compares with Lisa, that gap could be filled at any time. "I'd expect direct competition to Lisa before the end of the year," says Clive Smith of the Yankee group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Already one company, VisiCorp, has announced that it is developing a mouse system that will plug into an IBM PC and give it some of Lisa's capabilities at a lower price. Apple itself is working on a scaled-down version of Lisa called Mackintosh (a misspelling of the Mclntosh apple). Priced at about $2,000, it is expected to make its debut this summer. Other mouse-driven machines are sure to follow, but Jobs shrugs them off. "We want to drive this industry," he says. "We could have introduced Lisa a year ago, but we wanted to make it perfect. We're prepared to live with Lisa for the next ten years." —By Philip Faflick. Reported by Dick Thompson/San Francisco and Bruce van Voorst/New York