acm131@eric.ccs.northeastern.edu (Craig Scott Lennox) (11/20/89)
At our school (Northeastern) there are a lot of student sales reps
for the major computer companies, like IBM, Apple and Zenith. Through
these students, hundreds of students who would never have dreamt of
buying an over-expensive PS/2, buy one instead of a cheap clone. The
power these reps have to publicise and push computers on their peers is
unbelievable.. and the students they sell to now are the computer market
of the 1990s.
So, what I'd like to know is:
WHERE THE HELL ARE THE AMIGA REPS??!???!?!
I know of hundreds of Comp Sci and double-E majors at N.U. who would *love*
and highly appreciate the Amiga, for its great graphics, high degree of
hack-ability, and especially its multitasking ability. These things just
aren't available in their PC and Mac worlds, and if they really knew about
the Amiga alternative, they'd jump for it. But there isn't anyone to give them
the facts. And being typical college students, they aren't going to see TV
commericial because they never watch TV. Commodore is MISSING OUT on the
future computer market. They ought to get some student representation out
here.
Hell, I'd volunteer!!
Craig.
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\XX/ acm131@eric.ccs.northeastern.eduprem@geomag.fsu.edu (Prem Subrahmanyam) (11/21/89)
In article <4509@nigel.udel.EDU> acm131@eric.ccs.northeastern.edu (Craig Scott Lennox) writes: >So, what I'd like to know is: > > WHERE THE HELL ARE THE AMIGA REPS??!???!?! > >I know of hundreds of Comp Sci and double-E majors at N.U. who would *love* >and highly appreciate the Amiga, for its great graphics, high degree of >hack-ability, and especially its multitasking ability. >Hell, I'd volunteer!! I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I bet there would be a number of students here at FSU that I know own Amigas that would also be willing to volunteer their services to demonstrate Amigas out in the Union Courtyard along with all the PS/2's and Mac's on display. I bet the local users group would also be willing to put in some time for free as well. But, to get paid for it, even a small amount, would make it all the more attractive (keep the amt. small, though, so that it remains enjoyable). I wholeheartedly agree that Commodore is missing a valuable market in colleges. I get so sick when I see the Mac booth set up with all the black&white little monsters sequencing MIDI keyboards and the like, making tons of nice music. I personally think that this would be a worthwhile investment in advertising dollars....get some Amiga enthusiasts out there to promote the best personal computer around. ---Prem Subrahmanyam
hill@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Anthony Adam Hill) (11/21/89)
Here Here,
I talked to Gail Wellington at CA (she came down and talked at Informart
in Dallas) and said that they were seriously thinking about entering the
University Education market (but everyone knows that right??). She even hinted
at good educational and student discounts.
adam hill840445m@aucs.uucp (Alan McKay) (11/22/89)
Count me in!! Hell I do so much demoing and spreading of Amiga propaganda on campus that I practically AM a Commodore rep as it is. :-) I agree fully!! I know that Commodore does not have the amount of money to throw away that these other guys do, but this is a sure investment in the future!! -- + Alan W. McKay + VOICE: (902) 542-1565 + + Acadia University + "Courage my friend, it is not yet too late + + WOLFVILLE, N.S. + to make the world a better place." + + 840445m@AcadiaU.CA + - Tommy Douglas +
martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) (11/22/89)
In article <4539@lab.udel.EDU>, hill@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Anthony Adam Hill) writes: > I talked to Gail Wellington at CA (she came down and talked at Informart > in Dallas) and said that they were seriously thinking about entering the > University Education market (but everyone knows that right??). She even hinted > at good educational and student discounts. People at Commodore have been saying they had an educational program for quite a while now. I have never heard of anyone taking advantage of it. I have never heard any details. All I have heard is that it exists. Seems like vaporware to me. There have been some new, more emphatic announcements that such a program is going to be implemented. But there have been a number of requests for details here in comp.sys.amiga, all of which appear to have been ignored. If there really was such a program, it seems pretty silly for C= to spend millions on commercials when they won't even spend an hour of an employee's time to post an explanatory article on their educational program here. That's *free* advertising. And perfectly OK as a benefit to the usenet community. An unpublicized educational program is as bad as no educational policy at all. It's even worse, because it annoys people (like me) to think that there may actually be an educational policy out there that only people in the know or with friends at C= can take advantage of. That's the way the C= educational policy has seemed so far. I'll believe C= has an educational policy when I see a usenet article explaining all the details. That day I will rejoice. Ross Martin martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu
GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET (11/22/89)
Boy oh boy are you telling me about a vaporware policy on educational sales. I've actually talked with the Educational sales people and it's always been either "we are still hiring people" (which they are) or "in a couple of months we should have our new program going" (which hasn't happened yet). I know people with cash in hand for a 2500 who can *NOT* get one because of the setup. Local dealers will happily sell you one at list price, but mention an educational discount and you get blank stares... Maybe all the technoids at Commodore should get net accounts for their marketing/educational departments. There should be enough space on that Vax of theirs for that ;-) lets see what happens... --Dominic
sjm@sun.acs.udel.edu (Steve Morris) (11/22/89)
I live a stones throw from West Chester and am a member of the Northern Delaware users group (Amiga Network). The best info that I have been able to find out at this time is that they are waiting until after the christmas season to officially announce the educational program. The users group president has been corresponding with some people at C= and has mentioned that they are looking for campus reps. I don't know the inner organization of C=, but they may be working with limited personpower in marketing. Right now the focus must obviously be on the Holiday season. TO COMMODORE REPS/EMPLOYEES: I have noticed that the only Commodore-Amiga people I see posting here on the net are technical. Is it possible to get at least one person who can answer questions/ make announcements related to issues that are not strictly hardware or amigaDOS related?? Happy Thanksgiving to all! Steven
rjtatz@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Robert J. Tatz) (11/22/89)
In article <4509@nigel.udel.EDU> acm131@eric.ccs.northeastern.edu (Craig Scott Lennox) writes: > >At our school (Northeastern) there are a lot of student sales reps >for the major computer companies, like IBM, Apple and Zenith. Through >these students, hundreds of students who would never have dreamt of >buying an over-expensive PS/2, buy one instead of a cheap clone. [etc] >So, what I'd like to know is: > > WHERE THE HELL ARE THE AMIGA REPS??!???!?! Commodore education people came to OSU and told us the new education ads will be accompanied by student reps (paid) on campus, soon. They also promised A2000 and A2500 for OSU computer demo lab. Well, the computers are here. All you students on the net pay attention, since you have the most to offer as reps, I hope you will jump on this as soon as it gets going. (I hope real soon). -Bob rjtatz@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu
jac@muslix.llnl.gov (James Crotinger) (11/23/89)
In article <375@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) writes: >People at Commodore have been saying they had an educational program for >quite a while now. I have never heard of anyone taking advantage of it. >I have never heard any details. All I have heard is that it exists. Seems >like vaporware to me. > Actually there is apparently a CBM educational discount program. We learned about it when we tried to get the MIT Microcomputer Center (MCC) to pick up the Amiga a year or so ago. The problem is that it is a discount to *educational institutions*, NOT students. That is, you needed to have a purchase order to get the discount price. At the time what we (the MIT Amiga Users Group) wanted was for the MCC to pick up the Amiga and offer a substantial *student* discount. Alas it was not to be. First it went against their current educational discount policy, and second, the MCC was unwilling to become a full service authorized Amiga dealer. We tried to persuade Commodore to allow the MCC to simply order Amigas for students, but not service or even stock them. This idea went over like a lead balloon. CBM does not want people who are not full service dealers selling the Amiga. (A local Amiga store complained loudly that if MCC did this, they'd end up supporting and servicing all these Amigas that they hadn't sold...). I think CBM needs to be more flexible on this point. There is a fairly active Amiga constituency at MIT and I think the machine could be much more popular there if there was a good student discount. There have been short lived student discount offers in the past (e.g. I got my 1080 monitor "free" when I bought my A1000, a discount that was subsequently offered to just about everyone, and which wasn't all that substantial anyway). But there doesn't seem to be a coherent program in place. I think that CBM could be a big hit on campuses if they had an aggressive student discount program. As it stands, students at many schools can get Macs for not much more than Amigas. > > > Ross Martin > martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu Jim
docken@argos.uucp (William Dockendorf) (11/23/89)
In article <375@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) writes: >In article <4539@lab.udel.EDU>, hill@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Anthony Adam Hill) writes: >> I talked to Gail Wellington at CA (she came down and talked at Informart >> in Dallas) and said that they were seriously thinking about entering the >> University Education market (but everyone knows that right??). She even hinted >> at good educational and student discounts. > >People at Commodore have been saying they had an educational program for >quite a while now. I have never heard of anyone taking advantage of it. >I have never heard any details. All I have heard is that it exists. Seems >like vaporware to me. > > >I'll believe C= has an educational policy when I see a usenet article >explaining all the details. That day I will rejoice. > We recently had a person from Commodore come and speak at our Amiga user's group and he had some interesting things to say. One was that Commodore was threatening to fire anybody who talked about unreleased products specifically the 3000 and 1.4. He also mentioned the "educational discount" but said that Commodore was asking him not to push it since it was going away really soon (at the end of December) and they didn't want to publicize it a lot and then have people get mad when they found out that it had already ended. He said that anyone who was a teacher (or married to one, or had one for a parent, etc) could get an educational discount. I don't remember if he said that students could get this also. He didn't give any numbers but said that he would be willing to give details to anybody really interested after the meeting. Sorry, but I didn't get to ask him for details after the meeting since somebody went and elected me vice-president of the chapter (should have stayed home) and I was kinda busy after the meeting trying to figure out what I just got into. :-) William Dockendorf
valentin@cbmvax.UUCP (Valentin Pepelea) (11/23/89)
In article <5401@sun.acs.udel.edu> sjm@sun.acs.udel.edu (Steve Morris) writes: > >TO COMMODORE REPS/EMPLOYEES: >I have noticed that the only Commodore-Amiga people I see posting here >on the net are technical. Is it possible to get at least one person who >can answer questions/ make announcements related to issues that are not >strictly hardware or amigaDOS related?? Making announcements is particularly difficult for any employee, because like my .signature and everybody else's states, we are not Commodore Spokesmen. Therefore getting technical information is the best you can get out of CBM employees, and unfortunately only tech specs on the current products. Valentin -- The Goddess of democracy? "The tyrants Name: Valentin Pepelea may distroy a statue, but they cannot Phone: (215) 431-9327 kill a god." UseNet: cbmvax!valentin@uunet.uu.net - Ancient Chinese Proverb Claimer: I not Commodore spokesman be
LadyHawke@cup.portal.com (Classic - Concepts) (11/24/89)
In 1986 I did a demonstration of my Amiga to a group of about 100
people who heard about the demo by word-of-mouth. I wasn't trying to sell
the machine. I was just so excited about the things I'd been using it
for, I wanted to share the excitement. As a result of that demo, within
3 weeks, 13 people had bought Amigas. No kidding. They were technically
literate--I think perhaps that has something to do with it. (Wish I'd
had a commission on those sales, I would have bought a hard drive.)
The point is that the machine sells itself, as long as it is being
demoed by someone who can honestly answer people's questions. Since I have
worked on Macs, IBMs, TRS-80s and others for years, I was not describing
its capabilities by hearsay, but rather, by first-hand experience. So,
what people REALLY need to see, is what the machine can do. I demoed
graphics, sound, voice, digitizing and video output (straight composite
out, since I didn't have a genlock in those days). You should have seen
the enthusiasm. I also passed out a list of specs, a rap-sheet of sorts.
I don't know how best Commodore could capitalize on this kind of
approach, which seems to work, but your idea of student reps sounds like
it would fit very well with this method of presentation, since a college
crowd would also be reasonably technically literate and interested in
specifications.dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu (11/26/89)
-Message-Text-Follows- In article <8700@cbmvax.UUCP>, valentin@cbmvax.UUCP (Valentin Pepelea) writes... >Making announcements is particularly difficult for any employee, because like >my .signature and everybody else's states, we are not Commodore Spokesmen. > >Valentin I get the feeling that there is no spokseman at Commodore. Maby you guys should hire one. (or if there is one, give him/her access to usenet). Maby then there would be someone on this system without a disclamer :-> Douglas Peale Disclamer: These opinions are mine, and I disclaim all resposibility for them. These may or may not be the same as those of my employer, I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway as you don't know who my employer is
dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu (11/26/89)
-Message-Text-Follows- In article <3128@hub.UUCP>, dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes... >I get the feeling that there is no spokseman at Commodore. Maby you guys >should hire one. (or if there is one, give him/her access to usenet). >Maby then there would be someone on this system without a disclamer :-> > >Douglas Peale > Excuse me while I remove this foot from my mouth. About 5 minutes after I wrote that I remembered that Carolyn Shwepner (I remembered the name but not how to spell it) fits the discription of Spokesperson. I guess Commodore has not had much to officialy say lately. Douglas Peale
JKT100@PSUVM.BITNET (JKT) (11/29/89)
In article <3128@hub.UUCP>: > >In article <8700@cbmvax.UUCP>, valentin@cbmvax.UUCP (Valentin Pepelea) >writes.. >>Making announcements is particularly difficult for any employee, because like >>my .signature and everybody else's states, we are not Commodore Spokesmen. >> >>Valentin > >I get the feeling that there is no spokseman at Commodore. Maby you guys >should hire one. (or if there is one, give him/her access to usenet). >Maby then there would be someone on this system without a disclamer :-> > Well, technically speaking, because I am a remote customer service rep. for Commodore, I could be said to be a spokesman. The problem is that the C= upper echelons don't keep us all that well informed (I found out about the new product releases on HERE for example....) That is why you don't hear as much from the actual spokesmen - because we don't know enough about the products in question to be able to answer. It's not because we are badly trained or that we don't care - it's because we really aren't ABLE to answer. I mean, take your A3000 questions for example. The official answer would be "Commodore has not officially released an Amiga 3000, so I can't comment on any speculations about the machine." I know for a fact that you guys aren't here to read stuff like that, so what use is it for me to give you the official spokesman word? Kurt -- ======================================================================== || Kurt Tappe (814) 862-8630 || Remote Commodore Customer || || 600 E. Pollock Rd., #5705 || Service Representative || || State College, PA 16801 -------------------------------------|| || jkt100@psuvm.bitnet or jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 || || or jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu QLink: KurtTappe || ========================================================================
unhd (Robert Anderson) (12/01/89)
Ditto here at UNH, we've got Half OS (PS/2) reps and Mac, we even have a technology center that sells both. Where are the Amiga's??? Most students know little about the power of the Amiga (not to mention the affordable price). Pointed out earlier by the original poster, Students don't get much TV time in (at least not ones who can afford computers, they work). I have only seen 2 different amiga adds, totaling about 8 sightings and I look. I would love to see and/or participate in a campus Amiga Rep. We even have a very good local dealer, but that isn't known to most students. I just spoke to the head of the student computer store about getting Amiga discounts to students. The response: "That's all we need is another computer company!" Let's hear about the Amiga!!! Robert Anderson Head Operator/Programmer Research Computing Center UNH