rmeyers@tle.dec.com (Randy Meyers 381-2743 ZKO2-3/N30) (08/17/88)
decwrl!sun!aeras!edc writes: >Just who are Amiga's competitors anyway? It sure ain't Apple and Sun... >I question if IBM worries about them. Commodore has stated several times that it targets the Amiga against IBM and Apple. Those are the companies that have the markets Commodore wants to sell to; those are the companies that sell machines that roughly correspond in power to Amigas. Don't make the same mistake that many people here have lately. The Amiga isn't positioned against the '020 and '386 machines. The bulk of computers sold are still the midrange 68000 and 80286. The Amiga compares favorably against those machine. I would do an even swap of my Amiga for a MAC II; I wouldn't swap for a MAC SE. It is reasonable to position an Amiga 2000 against the '020 and '386 machines in certain situations. For example, in desktop video having a display resolution much different from the Amiga's is a great drawback since a television display is an overscan interlaced Amiga display. The typical display hardware for a MAC II is just all wrong for that application (thought its great for desktop publishing). It is even reasonable to position an Amiga 2000 with an accelerator card against '020 and '386 machines for many compute bound applications. >The only competitor I can see is Atari. At least I get to see Atari at >UNIX trade shows... Amiga? Never! Atari has a strong reputation for demoing a lot of non-products. Just because Atari goes to a few shows with a few demos does not mean that they will or can produce such a product. Of course, this is true for any manufacturer (including Commodore). For what its worth, Commodore has been demoing its System V on a 2000 with the Commodore '020 board. You just don't go to the right shows. >> BTW, I have had my Amiga since day one. It's sad to see the Amiga's >>edge wither away... > >Me too, I sold mine about a year ago. Glad I did. The Amiga's is gone when you class it as a absolute top of the line personal computer. However, when considered to be a mid-range pc in the class with the Mac SE, MAC plus, IBM clones, XT and AT, and low end to middle PS/2 machines it is a strong contender. It's still the sharpest machine around in its class. >I KNOW those slimeballs would be REALLY secretive about an A1000 > A2000 >upgrade. Slightly after the Amiga 2000 and 500 were announced, Commodore put on a show for the combined Boston Computer Society. At that meeting, a Commodore representative stated that they were considering the A1000 + $1000 = A2000 upgrade. This statement made it out to comp.sys.amiga by the end of the evening. All of this occurred a few months before the machine was selling in the United States. At the same time the 2000 made it to the store shelves, Commodore officially announced the upgrade program. The tradeup program was announced in all the magazines (before that it was rumored in all the magazines). All the dealers knew about it. The trade-up program was extended at least twice. Anyone who was minimally active in the Amiga community knew about it. >Damn interesting machine though. The sh*t will really hit the fan if >when Apple drops the price of the MacII. Of course the Amiga will disappear if the MAC II is priced at about the Amiga's level. However, if the market warrants the MAC II's price taking a plunge low enough to affect Amiga sales (we are talking major drop here), the same forces would cause the price of the Amiga to drop. The MAC II just doesn't effect Amiga sales very much; the machines are in different ecological niches. You might as well say that if cows ate plankton whales would die off. There is one market force that allows the MAC II to steal Amiga sales. There are a percentage of pc users that need and have the money to buy more expensive hardware then is currently available. Those people always jump to the new fastest machine when it becomes available. However, they are not all of the market. The market supports machines targeted at several different levels. Did you notice that when IBM threw out their old models and introduced the PS/2 line that not all of the new machines had '386 CPUs? Did you notice that one of the machines was the moral equivalent of a slightly jazzed up XT? Do you think that IBM knows something about computer marketing and what products sell? >I suspect that CBM is lose it in about a year or two. Commodore will lose big if they sell today's products in two years. So will every other manufacturer. The Amiga was introduced as a high end pc. However, Commodore botched the marketing and botched the expansion ability of the machine. Commodore was able to correct the problem and reincarnate the Amiga as a powerful but medium level machine. That means in two years that they will have to come out with a significantly more powerful machine to hold on to middle level status or aspire to high end status. They could keep the current Amiga around as an inexpensive "toy" computer. >By the way? anybody got sales figures for Word Perfect on the Amiga? >I'll bet they suck. WordPerfect is delighted with their Amiga sales figures. An official at WordPerfect has been quoted in saying that they took a lot of ribbing when they started their Amiga division, but it has proved to be so lucrative that some other "big name" companies are considering getting into the Amiga business. Interestingly enough, I've seen several WordPerfect Corp advertisements looking for Amiga programmers (perhaps the most concrete sign that the Amiga business is good). >Face it, Hackers buy Amigas. POOR hackers who can't afford Macs. Funny, most of the Amiga hackers I know could afford could afford a MAC II. ---------------------------------------- Randy Meyers, not representing Digital Equipment Corporation USENET: {decwrl|decvax|decuac}!tle.dec.com!rmeyers ARPA: rmeyers%tle.dec.com@decwrl.dec.com