"I don't think they are certain winners," said Stewart Alsop, editor of InfoWorld, a trade weekly.
Mr. Alsop questions, for instance, Apple's decision to design an awkward trackball device into the notebooks; it would be used as a pointing device instead of a mouse, which is standard on Apple's desktop models but doesn't travel well.
"They're just trying to level the playing field, and it looks like they'll succeed," Mr. Alsop said.
Jobs was enough of an engineer that he knew what the technology would allow, and could tell people what had to happen and in what order to come up with great computers," Mr. Alsop continues.
"Ed's got to find someone with technical vision, and he hasn't done that," says Stewart Alsop, the editor of PC Letter.
The trick of writing a column, Alsop thought, was rather like a debased version of the trick of writing sonnets: it had to be well organised.
Lamar Alsop was the noteworthy soloist in Beethoven's "Romance in F Major for Violin and Orchestra."
Joseph Alsop continued the column alone, first for The Washington Post and later for The Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
Alsop said he has complained about the students' driving to school officials four times during the last three years to no avail.
"I think Egghead is going to be a big success," said Stewart Alsop, publisher of PC Letter, an industry newsletter.
"Personal computer makers now know they can reliably deal with Chips & Technologies, but they still have to deal with IBM," said Stewart Alsop, publisher of PC Letter, an industry newsletter.
Mr. Alsop said Victor D. Alhadeff, Egghead's founder, chairman and chief executive officer, seized upon the chief ingredient in selling software: fun.
Adds Stewart Alsop, editor of P.C. Letter, an industry newsletter published in Redwood City, Calif.: "I see a company that is incredibly vulnerable."