chymes@fribourg.csmil.umich.edu (Charles Hymes) (06/16/90)
With CDTV, a company has finally come up with a real use for a "home" computer. Computers are still generally office machines, even when the office is at home or in a dorm room. CDTV is the first "computer" targeted at the living room. Notice that CDTV is not called a computer in any of the Commodore released stuff. Look at the styling. The CDTV is ment to be tucked in with the rest of a consumers stereo gear, not on a desk next to a printer. They have got an edge on all CDs, CD ROMS, video disks, and high end video-game machines. CDTV is an innovative extention into the stable, profitable market of Home audio-visual, and the maturation of the still child-centered home video game market. The addional functionality of applications like the complete works of William Shakespeare of an illustrated Encylopedia Britanica are just stuff to help adults rationalize buying a great new toy for themselves. It is not a liability at all for Commodore to be selling CDTV, mostly because CDTV is such a different product than computers but also because CDTV shows no signs of being a cheap attempt of a real busness machine. Also it could help sell Amigas as serious AV/Multimedia platforms if CDTV is perceived as a state of the art AV system. Now, commodore could still blow it. The marketing will be very crutial. They cannot allow most software to need keyboards, mice, or even look too compueresque. CDTV needs to be advertized and sold in stero stores,along with other high-medium AV gear, and not in the "home computer" section of those stores, or in the obscure, rinky dink affairs most commodore dealerships are. They also need to caputure the news media, and become the hot "big ticket" item of the next christmas season. If commodore can get thousands of Amigas in american homes as CDTV units they just might survive the IBM + Apple home system onslought that is going to start this year. Remember, IBM has been developing a similar system aimed at the same market, but designed as a computer product. Apple is also going to release new low-end products. IBM has such huge resources they can loose money for the whole decade to control the market share. Commodore has been a consumer oriented company, and IBM has not, but I bet IBM can learn fast. Probably fast enough to grab up the home "computer" market, that Commodore has been unable to capture. As of yet, only commodore has a consumer computer product that has a wide open market. If they exploit this lead aggressively they can be expected to do quite well indeed. People have been waiting for the next new consumer manifestation of real high-tech. Commodore has just delivered it. Charlweed