phil@ingr.com (Phil Johnson) (08/09/89)
The July 17 issue of Federal Computer Week had an article on C. Lloyd Mahaffey, Commodore's new vice-president of Marketing. Mahaffey is quoted "Give me six months"; "By the first of the calendar year you'll see Commodore in the federal market with some impressive products." The article continues by saying that Commodore will seek GSA schedule sales as well as deals with system integrators. In addition to creating a federal group Mahaffey will focus heavily on selling to higher education and business. Mahaffey is further quoted: "When I took a close look at the Amiga I couldn't believe it. The machine has full multitasking, Motorola Inc. 68000 processor and icons. What it doesn't have is marketing and breadth of applications. The product has never been positioned right and the company never evangelized the software developers" Mahaffey is responsible for Apple's high profile in the federal sector, so has the credentials to put the Amiga into the largest computer market in the world. Also It seems that Mr. Mahaffey was given SIGNIFICANT perks to lure him to Commodore. This could translate into corporate longeviety. This is the most positive step I have seen in Commodore's management in several years. For those of you who aren't familiar with what the federal sector provides, just look at the $280 million purchase of AT clones by the military under a single contract (Desktop II). This was 350,000 Zenith Z-248 boxes. The federal involvment also will insure that Amiga UNIX will move toward POSIX, which is a requirement in most DOD procuements. Everyone keep their fingers crossed --- our time may have really come. -- Philip E. Johnson UUCP: usenet!ingr!b3!sys_7a!phil MY words, VOICE: (205) 772-2497 MY opinion!