rg20+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rick Francis Golembiewski) (03/22/89)
> Of course, no one picks up their marbles and goes home. What is > does mean to the consumer is that LESS new product development > does into the Amiga market. You start to see just "mine is a bit > cheaper and a bit faster than the 20X0 widget", ie Commodore drives the > technology and everyone tries to undercut them. This is where all the > disk/memory people are today. I don't really see how LESS new product developement occurs, after all isn't the goal to make hardware better? I really don't see how memory/harddrives can be made better except by making them A> faster or B> cheaper or C> both A & B. Note that there ARE companies working on things that cost more then the commodore products (usually with a greater speed/storage capacity) because commodore sets a standard for both price and power. Granted that 3rd party developers will lose sales if they compete DIRECTLY against commodore, but if they go for other markets (ie by making innovative hardware) then their sales should be unaffected. Also, since commodore now sells things that many people consider integral parts of a computer system (ie expansion memory, H drives), more users will consider buying amigas (some of whom may want innovative prodcuts) thus by providing basic products commodore increases the numbers of amigas, and thus potential markets for hardware (after all is there are X times as many amigas out there there is a potential market X times larger...) Also, the things commodore makes, are necessary to keep the machine up to date, in fact they already are falling behind (ie no '30 based amiga) the other companies (ie Apple with 3 '30 Macs -> SE30,IIx,IIcx), have newer machines which out preform amigas (although have a much greater $$$), plus they have a stronger software base... Of course they aren't as fun as the amiga :-)... Serious though, if commodore sits around for other developers to make the basics, then they aren't going to be made because the people who would buy a type of product aren't going to buy amigas if the things they want (be it hardware, or software), don't exist at least to some degree. (Ie If YOU had to buy a machine to do Desk Top publishing (say for your business), what computer would you buy?). Until there are some really EXCELLENT programs and maybe a laser printer from CA, I doubt that too many people would say amigas... +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Disclaimer: Me? Post That, impossible I never post anything... | | TypetoYouLater(Everyone); --> "functional Good bye".... | | Rick Golembiewski [ Pronunciation is half the Battle, spelling the other] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+