BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (05/02/90)
After all the exitement over the Amiga 3000, and all of the other
products that have been introduced recently, it is sad to be brought
back to reality by the fact that Commodore still has bad marketing
problems. Here we have this very good machine, with a really great
price, and it is likely that bad marketing will hurt any chances it
has of really doing a dent in the competition, especially in the
universities.
Apple products are fairly popular here, but mostly through brute
force. This university is not all that big -- 25,000 students -- in
an equally small city of 50,000. But there are three Apple dealers
here in town. The nearest Commodore dealer is 35 miles south of
here, in Des Moines. All three of the Apple dealers advertize
continuously; it is impossible to look at any issue of the school
newspaper without seeing at least two or three ads for the
Macintosh.
The university itself runs a small non-profit "dealer" the
computation center. This dealer sells computers and products for
nearly all of the big computer makers, except Commodore. They
sell Apple, IBM, Compaq, and H-P systems. I would like to get
them to sell Commodore stuff -- and set up an Amiga 3000 demo
system -- but they vehemently refuse.
My question concerns this small university-run dealer. If
Commodore has a chance of getting any of the dealers here in Ames
to carry their stuff, it is this one. But I do not know how to
go about pursuading them to do so. This isn't really the kind
of dealer Commodore would normally want to work with (they
don't stock anything -- they place orders and you get your order
several weeks later) but their student prices are great, and
they have demo systems set-up in a place that is VERY convenient
for students to just stop in a see them. To get this place to
support Commodore equipment -- even for the purpose of just getting
them to set up an Amiga 3000 demo system -- would significantly
boost the popularity of the Amiga here. People would no longer
have to drive 40 miles to see the newest machines.
So, how should I go about pursuading this place to support
Commodore? What technical or dealer information should I obtain
to help me do it, and how do I obtain that information? And how
can I prove to this place that their are a LOT of current and
potential Amiga users here who would be highly interested in
them supporting Commodore products?
-MB-jacurtis@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Jeff Curtis) (05/03/90)
Here in Syracuse you see the same thing except that there is one Amiga dealer just outside the city (Compters Etc.) but Syracuse University refuses to even support a Commodore machine. When I had a question on Kermit for the 64/128 (one of these days an A 500 is mine- when I can afford it) the University's Academic Computing Service refused to answer my question because I own a Commodore computer and they do not support it even though at least one of their consultants is an expert Commodore user. I think the educational discount is a step in the right direcito, but the company must also use advertising better. This last campaign made the Amiga look like an overgrown game machine instead of the serious computer all of us know it is. They had the same problem with the C64 because noone knows that one can do things like Desktop Publishing or other business needs on it. Jeff Curtis internet: jacurtis@rodan.acs.syr.edu