dand@oxy.edu (Daniel D. Fineman) (07/20/89)
I've owned an Amiga for almost two years because I believe it,s an excellent computer for the money. Ihave expected Amy to grab some press and really climb in the US market. While I know the machine has some following in Europe and has pocket markets in the US, it still has very little popular recognition. Question: will the Amy survive?
Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com (07/23/89)
Since the topic of marketing/Commodore's_survival has reared its ugly
head again, I thought I would share a couple of experiences from the inside
production end of things. I have worked for two companies who created
educational graphics-intensive programs for the high-end market (high in
terms of development - the cost of developing these programs was about
$400,000 average for something that runs interactively for about 1/2 hour.
I think the selling price to have these products installed ranged about
$20,00, so we're not talking about a $300 spreadsheet, but rather, a
major purchase. Here's the scenario:
Both companies had Big Blue's machines (XT's at one AT's at the other).
Both companies had Amigas.
Both companies READILY acknowledged that the Amiga's graphics were
indisputably superior and that the graphics hardware was miles ahead.
Both companies READILY acknowledged the software on the Amiga was
clearly superior (this was before DPaint was ported to run under MSDOS)
Both companies READILY acknowledged that development time on the Amiga
would have been approximately ONE THIRD that on the IBM, mainly because
of file format incompatibilities, lack of technical documentation on
much of the IBM software they were using, greater accessibility and
lower cost of digitizing equipment and superior, more intuitive software.
I could cite about 1/2 dozen other examples, but you should now have a
picture of the situation.
One other important consideration. Since these were to be set up as
individual workstations, with the option to buy the equipment as well,
compatibility with the client's machines was not an over-riding factor.
Both companies chose to develop on the IBM machines. There was no questioning
their decisions. Their minds were firmly made up. The reason was this:
Each company owned only one Amiga, which they purchased themselves. They
owned 3 IBMs which were apparently lent/donated by IBM or perhaps it's what
you might term semi-permanent loan. As long as they developed for the machin
they were allowed to keep them. There might even have been
some limited maintenance and service, I didn't ask. The fact that the Amigas
would have paid for themselves over and over again and the programs would
have been superior in the market (on the IBMs they were using CGA in one
company and EGA on the other--both pathetic compared to Amiga graphics and
the best animations they came up with were programming-intensive and pathetic
compared with what I can do in 1/2 hour with Deluxe Video or any of the other
products on the Amiga) was not sufficient argument. At the beginnings of the
projects the IMMEDIATE cost was what they were concerned about. PLUS, and
people often forget this (or aren't aware of it), equipment and salaries come
out of different budgets. This can make an enormous difference in the types
of expenditures which are allowed and which ones aren't. In real life,
$10,000 for a machine and $10,000 for development time are not directly
comparable--they're apples and oranges.
I was the one hired to create the graphics title screens, menus, illustra-
tions, graphs and the frames for the animations. It should have been a
wonderful experience. It was, instead, a continual frustration, compromising
quality so severely, and taking 3 hours to do what could have been done better
in 1. Even the educational integrity of the programs was compromised, since
concepts which could have better been conveyed with movement weren't, because
of the time and labor involved (and not all programmers are good animators).
That was a VERY long answer to your question about why more people haven't
heard about the Amiga. My experiences graphically show that the short-term
bottom line seems to win out almost every time.
Julie Petersen
bralick@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (William Anthony Bralick) (08/29/89)
In article <43903@tiger.oxy.edu> dand@oxy.edu (Daniel D. Fineman) writes: > >Question: will the Amy survive? Any truth to the rumors that HP is looking to acquire the Amiga as a low-end workstation to complement their (newly acquired) Apollo models? Regards, Will
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (08/30/89)
In article <43903@tiger.oxy.edu> dand@oxy.edu (Daniel D. Fineman) writes: > >Question: will the Amy survive? Any truth to the rumors that HP is looking to acquire the Amiga as a low-end workstation to complement their (newly acquired) Apollo models? Regards, Will ------------------------------------------- Can we PLEASE put an end to this soap opera type bullshit?! - Doug - Doug_B_Erdely@Cup.Portal.Com