hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu (08/16/88)
Written 7:58 pm Aug 14, 1988 by edc@aeras.UUCP in comp.sys.amiga: > By the way? anybody got sales figures for Word Perfect on the Amiga? > I'll bet they suck. Can somebody name a major applications product that > is selling well on Amiga? Face it, Hackers buy Amigas. POOR hackers who > can't afford Macs. A "Hobbyist's" computer can't expect to compete with > business machines. That happens only once in a lifetime. That was Apple. End of excerpt. Martketing-types from C-A and Wordperfect Corp. have gleefully pointed out on a number of occasions that the 1+ years of development costs on Amiga Wordperfect wer recouped in just one week of sales. The rumor mills are saying that this fact has not gone unnoticed by other heavyweights such as Microsoft and Ashton-Tate. Take this as you will, but if it says anything, it is that there is a large market for professional products on the Amiga. On the matter of hobbyist machines not doing well in business, you should qualify that with some measure of scale. VisiCalc on the Apple II CREATED the small-business computer market. Commodore has traditionally competed relatively well in this market as well. HOWEVER, the real market I think you are referring to is the professional market. Here, Commodore is apparently focusing along vertical lines where the Amiga has advantages, for the time being: video, music, and color art/publishing. The distinction here has been illustrated many times over, as has the fatality of Commodore's present stance. The Apple II was lost forever to the professional market not because it couldn't be upgraded to the latest performance standards (it COULD: remember the Mill? The DTACK grounded board? 6502B/C enhancements?). But the IBM PC had an arguably more powerful architecture and "easily" portable software from the CP/M world. The Amiga itself has been stealing the video market from the too-vertical character generators, chroma-keys, etc. But unless the Amiga establishes itself more quickly as a horizontal-market power hitter, it in turn will be vanquished by the 386's and the Mac II right in it's home field. Unless Commodore brings out answers to the Amiga's deficiencies real soon, the tables will turn and the Amiga will be locked out of all but the home and small business markets forever. Basically, what you'll have is another C-64. I'm sure this isn't bad news to some, but I for one will be rather pissed at having seen all of the Amiga's potential squandered. < Lionel ---------- Lionel Hummel 404 W. High St., #6 hummel@cs.uiuc.edu Urbana, IL 61801 {seismo,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!hummel (H) (217)344-5303 Dept. of Computer Science (W) (217)333-7408 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign #define QUOTE "To be, or not to be: that is the question..." #define DISCLAIMER "I am my own spokesperson. I work on exclusive terms."