Anaheim Firm Expects Mouse That Roars
CalComp Inc. Chairman William Conlin says his company has built a better mousetrap.
Or at least a better mouse.
CalComp of Anaheim jumped into the personal computer business Tuesday by introducing its first computer mouse, an increasingly popular type of device that can be pushed about on a desktop to move the cursor on a computer screen and give commands.
With the new product--unveiled at the Comdex computer trade show in Las Vegas--the computer-graphics company is stepping into a faster-growing part of the computer business in hope of boosting sluggish sales.
Since its founding in the early 1960s, CalComp has specialized in a small segment of the computer market by supplying costly digitizers, plotters and other graphics equipment for use by engineers, industrial designers and the like. Its products are used to draw such complex pictures as topographical maps or mechanical drawings.
A big reason for the move into the PC field is that sales in the once-booming market for computer-aided design equipment have tailed off in 1989, Conlin said.
CAD sales will grow just 5% to 10% this year, less than half the rate of a few years ago, he said.
“The CAD market has been very good to us . . . but it only represents about 2% or 3% of the total computer marketplace,” he said. “In the general PC market, we’re talking about millions of potential customers.”
Conlin recently said CalComp’s 1989 earnings will be down on sales of $450 million to $475 million. He cited sluggish growth in the CAD market as one reason for the lower earnings. CalComp is a subsidiary of Lockheed Corp., which does not disclose profit figures for its units.
Conlin hopes that its newfangled mouse--nicknamed the WIZ--will work some magic on CalComp’s sales. The company will spend $5 million to promote the WIZ and has signed up Ingram Micro D of Santa Ana, the nation’s largest wholesaler of microcomputer products, to get the WIZ into the nation’s computer stores.
The mouse gained popularity with the introduction of Apple Computer’s Macintosh five years ago. The Macintosh uses a mouse to move the cursor to a specific place on the screen and issue commands to the computer by pointing and clicking the device. A mouse eliminates the need to type in numerical or alphabetical commands to the computer, as must be done with traditional PC software programs.
The Macintosh mice have proven so popular that International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have brought the concept to basic operating system software, called OS/2, used inside IBM’s most powerful personal models and compatible machines.
“When OS/2 comes out, it will function a lot like the Macintosh,” Conlin said. “That will increase the demand for mouse products.”
CalComp’s $200 mouse, which will work with both IBM compatibles and the Macintosh, functions differently from other devices on the market.
It combines a mouse with a plastic card called a template. The template allows the user to position the mouse above a certain spot on the card, click a button and send a command to the computer. It reduces the need to display menus or a list of choices on the screen before executing a command.
“The slowest part of using a computer is the user himself,” Conlin said, but the CalComp mouse will help “cut through the mess of pulling down menus and wondering which one contains what function.”
Industry forecasts indicate that 5 million mice will be sold in 1990, up from an expected 4 million this year, Conlin said.
“We expect to sell hundreds of thousands” of mice, Conlin said.
