cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (08/18/88)
[well, it was in response to my posting ...] I wrote : > the Mac II and the 386 clones they have to be in the same league. In article <2167@ssc-vax.UUCP> (David Geary) responded with : > They may not be in the "same league", however, they do compete > *directly* against the Amiga in the marketplace. David, and to others reading this, from a marketing perspective they do not compete. The marketing people (and myself) divide computers up into several classes, and primarily these classes are delimited by PRICE. They are subdivided by PERFORMANCE, and then further subdivided by CAPABILITIES. When a person is going to make a computer purchase they do have REQUIREMENTS, STANDARDS, and a BUDGET. (you will note the inverse relationship here) And a customer will (by definition) buy the system that has the best CAPABILITIES and PERFORMANCE and are within his or her BUDGET. Taking this to a real world example, suppose that a customer has $16,000, wants to do desktop video and publishing, and wants to do 60 frame/second animation. He considers all of the machines that fit within his budget and buys a Mac II or 386 clone. He has to because it is the best match for his criteria. Now give the same person a budget of $5000 and he buys an Amiga. The difference is his budget. The fact that earlier the Amiga could do things that a $20,000 system couldn't was more an indication that the Amiga was underpriced than anything else. If the customers REQUIREMENTS were that the computer support a multitasking operating system that could run in 1 megabyte of memory it would eliminate the Mac II and the 386 boxes from the competition, but here the difference is the REQUIREMENTS. Which are fundamental to any computer marketing strategy. This is all basic product marketing stuff. Every engineer should have at least some understanding of it if they want to build products that fall into a saleable category. The other case would be to build a $5000 video game machine (which one company in Ventura did once) And while it admirably met the REQUIREMENTS and PERFORMANCE, specs of the customers most had budgets under $500 and all had budgets of under $1000 at the time. So no one bought it. > The Amiga line needs a high-end machine, like the A3000. This statement needs to be backed up with "Here is are the REQUIREMENTS and STANDARDS the customer has set forth, and here is their BUDGET." Looking at the Mac II and 386 customers one could reasonably guess that some (but not all) of them would have bought an Amiga if the Mac II or 386 box was not available. And that their budget was more than $10,000 for the complete machine. Now working backward from that you try to decide how many would have bought an Amiga and therefore the size of the market, then calculate the gross margins needed on the box to pay for the development, and figure out what the target unit cost should be (in this case probably $2000) And after preparing for what Apple and IBM will drop into the pipeline in the 12 to 24 months of development time you figure out what features it will need, and then you spend the 20 million or so to get it developed. (I'm using a projected market of 100,000 units in the first year and a development margin of $200 (which means that after cost of parts, labor, overhead and support there is $200 profit from the sale of this mythical box to pay off that development debt)) Not an easy job but that is why you need a strategic marketing group. >BTW: > 1) Where IS the A2500UX? > 2) Where IS the A2500AT? Where should they be? Both were displayed as "technology previews" by the German arm of Commodore, neither was announced as a real product. My guess is that by Christmas you will be able to buy the add-in products to make your system into one of these but I don't expect them to be marketed as a seperate Amiga per se. > 3) Where IS the A3000? Deep in the subconcious of Dave Haynie I suspect. Actually, it is probably in development, and if they started last year I would expect it by Christmas of *next* year. > 4) Where IS NeWS on the Amiga? Ameristar has it and was showing it off at Siggraph. Why not ask them? > 5) Where IS X windows on the Amiga? Dale was doing the same for X11, again he should answer if he chooses to. > 6) Where IS Un*x for the Amiga? In a trashbin somewhere? :-) If you want UNIX why not buy a Sun? Even with an Amiga 3000 there is no way Commodore can make a better UNIX system than the Sun 3/60. You're looking at $10K either way. And the Sun comes with ethernet. If you want UNIX cheap why not buy a UNIX-PC from AT&T? The question is "What is your REQUIREMENT, and what is you BUDGET?" If it's UNIX and $2K then buy a PC clone and get MINIX for it. Hell, get the BridgeBoard and run MINIX on it! Better yet, get the AT bridgeboard and run SCO Xenix on it! The point is, it is pretty silly for Commodore to try to become a UNIX supplier. They don't have the resources to support two OSes and frankly I would rather not see UNIX and have AmigaDOS well supported than to see UNIX and AmigaDOS supported poorly or not at all. > 7) Where IS an inexpensive laser printer for the Amiga. It's at a computer store near you, it's called an HP LaserJet II and it costs less on the street than an AtariLaser. Jade computers was selling a Genicom Laser printer for $995. Is that inexpensive enough? > Or, maybe something a little easier: where is 1.3 of the Amiga OS? Actually, that is the toughest since the only answer is that it is stuck in a broken release process as Commodore trys to become a software company too. > Hey, if Commodore can't get 1.3 out the door within a *reasonable* > amount of time, how are they going to get Unix out the door within > the next millennium? You answer your own question, they aren't. Why wait? If you really want UNIX buy a UNIX box. If you want a UNIX box that does desktop video well, you either have to pay a lot or wait, what other choice do you have ? Do you have any idea how many people it takes to port, customize, and maintain a UNIX port to internal hardware? Do you know how many people Commodore has working on software only ? I think that is a pretty good definition of a millennium. > How are they going to produce new hardware (A2500, A3000, etc)? That is what they are set up for, I suspect this is what they will do best. They do have a problem with getting "finished" hardware into production it's true. > How are they going to support NeWS, X Windows, > ad on infinitum (and ad nausea, too). They aren't, they will rely on third parties like Ameristar and Boing Inc. > My whole point in starting this discussion is this: when the Amiga > first came out, it was *better* than anything you could buy for > under $100,000,000,000. (You mean you didn't read the first few > issues of AmigaWhirld?) Now the gap is closing, and, you can > actually get something *better* for under $100,000,000,000. I'd love to > see the gap widen again. Plain and simple. Only way to do this is pick a new market. See once the secret is out that people will pay for the ability to do 3d animations on their desktop, a company like Apple with 600 million in cash in the bank simply says "Hey, lets spend 15 or 20 million and see if we can't get some of this market." And they did, and they did. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
brianm@sco.COM (Brian Moffet) (08/19/88)
>BridgeBoard and run MINIX on it! Better yet, get the AT bridgeboard and >run SCO Xenix on it! NO NO NONONONONONONONO!!!!! there, got that out of my system. ;-) Let me describe basically how the bridgeboard and the SCO Xenix OS works. The bridgeboard will allow a DOS process to talk to the hardware via the BIOS. This will be for the Video board most importantly, and possibly other hardware. Now, SCO xenix does _not_ use the BIOS at all. It goes straight to the hardware. Therefore, using SCO Xenix, which needs almost exact *hardware* compatability with an AT, on the bridgeboard will not work. I seriously doubt that the Bridge board gives AT *hardware* compatability. brian -- -=-=-=-=-=-=- Brian Moffet brianm@sco.com {ucscc,uunet,decvax!microsof}!sco!brianm My opinions do not in any way reflect those of my employer or my fish. 'Evil Geniuses for a Better Tommorrow!'
ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) (08/19/88)
In article <64636@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: >> 6) Where IS Un*x for the Amiga? >In a trashbin somewhere? :-) If you want UNIX why not buy a Sun? Even with >an Amiga 3000 there is no way Commodore can make a better UNIX system than >the Sun 3/60. Depends on what you mean by "better". How about faster, cheaper, and compatible with Amiga software? There's also the European market which, for whatever reason, likes System V. If you took generic System V and put it on an Amiga with no windows, no mouse, no nothin', you could sell it in Euroupe. > You're looking at $10K either way. And the Sun comes with >ethernet. I'm pretty sure an Amiga with Unix and ethernet won't cost $10K. If it turns out to cost that much, you're certainly right about it not being an alternative to Sun. > If you want UNIX cheap why not buy a UNIX-PC from AT&T? I have a UNIX-PC that I bought with money I had saved up to buy an Amiga 2000. I like it very much, but I'm sure the Amiga will be so much more valuable (in terms of performance, expandability, features, support, etc.) that I'll end up upgrading. There is a market for cheap unix, but not THAT cheap (when you buy a Unix machine for $1500 you suffer in ways other than original price). > Do you have any idea how many people it takes to port, customize, >and maintain a UNIX port to internal hardware? I don't think the hardware aspects of the port are what needs to be worried about; Unix is pretty portable these days in those respects. What will take a lot of work is getting Unix into a form that lives up to the existing Amiga software -- things like user interface, windowing systems, and support for third party hardware and software. It's these things that will (or won't) make the Amiga something other than "just another Un*x box". Another Disclaimer: I am working for Commodore, but the above ravings are entirely my own invention and may or may not bear any relation to any official policy of Commodore. -- -=] Ford [=- . . (In Real Life: Mike Ditto) . : , ford@kenobi.cts.com This space under construction, ...!ucsd!elgar!ford pardon our dust. ditto@cbmvax.commodore.com
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (08/20/88)
In article <782@viscous> brianm@sco.COM (Brian Moffet) writes: > Let me describe basically how the bridgeboard and the SCO Xenix OS > works. The bridgeboard will allow a DOS process to talk to the hardware > via the BIOS. This will be for the Video board most importantly, > and possibly other hardware. Now, SCO xenix does _not_ use the > BIOS at all. It goes straight to the hardware. I believe you are mistaken Brian. One of the reasons that the Amiga display was fairly "slow" on the BridgeCard was that it detects any write to the display addresses in the PC address space and then scans that memory for changes and updates the Amiga screen. You should know that the BridgeCard and the AT BridgeCard run Flight Simulator II and Jet, and a whole bunch of other things that go "Direct to the Hardware." > Therefore, using SCO Xenix, which needs almost exact *hardware* > compatability with an AT, on the bridgeboard will not work. > I seriously doubt that the Bridge board gives AT *hardware* > compatability. And this is where you are mistaken. The BridgeBoard is an *exact* PC clone on a board, right down to the DMA controller and Timer chips. (Well as exact as the Faraday PC-Clone chip set can make it.) I have seen Digital Researches Concurrent DOS running on a Bridge Board. If SCO Xenix runs on more than 50% of the AT clones available on the market, I am pretty darn sure it will work on the AT Bridgeboard. Actually, for a pretty nice system, I would like to run Xenix or UNIX on a BridgeCard and X11 on the Amiga (using the bus as a network). You could have a really neat system this way. Seamless multiprocessing. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.