The Story Of How A Brands Future Kiilds Its Present

The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely!

Over 30 years ago, PC computers weren't primarily deskbound, they were entirely deskbound! 
The thought that computers could be portable was almost inconceivable 

But that changed on April 3rd, 1981 
CASEOMANIA.COM 

A start-up called the Osborne Computer Corporation launched the Osborne 1 at a computer fair in San Francisco 

It was a fully functioning, transportable computer, it was relatively easy to use, and it gave you everything you needed for a then low price of $1,795. 

he first units shipped in June of '87, and by August the company had sold $10 million dollars worth of computers! 
By February, revenues had reached $700 million

....they announced that they were going to launch an updated and improved model a few months down the road 

The incident became known as the "Osborne Effect" 

And then the "thing" happened kaab0000m! 
CCASEOMANIA.COM Save this post ill 

Everyone stopped buying the Osborne 1- in anticipation of the better model coming out later in the year! 
The company became instantly cash-starved, with no income for the next month massive layoffs began 

When a company pre-announces a future product, and that announcement has a devastating effect on their existing product 

Do you think this is one of the reasons why brands like Apple never reveals any new features before the actual launch?