dfrancis@dsoft.UUCP (Dennis Heffernan) (12/25/89)
Welp, I'm a Snears 'Bland Central' salesman :-). We don't have Amys
on the floor. They are in the CHRISTMAS catalog, but I'm told that they will
disappear after the holidays.
It seems that Mr. Toy originally made the arrangements for us to carry
the Amy, but when Mr. Copperman took over he nixed the deal. Reportedly, he
is of the opinion that the machine should be taken out of mass market stores
(like Toys R Us (gag)) and only sold through "computer stores". One version
of
the rumor says that he wasn't able to quash the catalog end of things at the
time; another says that a loan to pay for all the advertising was contingent
upon Sears selling the Amy in one form or another.
IMHO, there's no reason why Sears *couldn't* do a competent job of
selling the Amy. It'd be nice to have 500's in my department and 2000's
out in the Buisness Centers. BUT, as an employee, I also know that they
*wouldn't* do a good job of it. I know this because I am the only computer
literate person in my department. We've had four training sessions on
cellular phones...zero on computers. I've gotten tired of cleaning up other
people's messes in this; I've lost count of how many times other salesmen have
sold someone incompatable hardware or software, or brazenly exaggerated the
capabilities of our machines. ("Sure, this 10 MHz XT will run AutoCAD.")
We also don't have a decent selection of add-on boards, hard drives, extra
floppies, mouses, software...you get the idea. Pretty much, we can only sell
base systems. For any kind of support, the customer is referred to other
dealers.
There's no reason why any or all of that couldn't be changed, but
until it is I'd have to agree with Commodore's decision to scrap the deal.
Disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge of Commodore policy, motives,
et cetera.
--dfh ...uunet!galaxy!dsoft!dfrancis
"Think of something clever, and assume I said it."