denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) (07/01/88)
This group goes through cycles of positive outlook to negative outlook and back
again. Right now we're in a negative one.
Here are some threads I see as destructive:
I. Commodore bashing
I.A. Commodore marketing sucks
When I analyze this, it usually comes down to a statement like "They left out
this feature which *I* think is important, how could they be so blind, their
heads are up their..." But marketing doesn't consists of dreaming up every
feature known to humankind and shoving it into a product, it consists of
establishing a price goal, then deciding the best mix of features which can be
produced profitably within that price goal.
From a standing start, with little name recognition, relatively small dealer
support, and low level advertising, in 8 months Commodore has sold 600,000
A500's. I consider that pretty damn good marketing. It isn't important whether
a specific feature that you hold holy is present, the point is that 600,000
people felt it was a value they couldn't pass up. That is what, AND ONLY WHAT,
marketing is about - convincing people to spend money.
I.B. Commodore advertising sucks
I have seen several people here say "We could do a better job than the ad
agency that Commodore is using".
Have you ever been involved in REALLY developing an ad campaign, not just
doing it as an intellectual exercise? Figuring out where the ads will go,
deciding who you're targeting and how to get his or her attention? You will
immediately end up with an ad campaign costing 10 times as much as you have
money to spend.
Folks, Commodore is poor. I think I've seen a lot of demands for more TV ads
- but TV ads are expensive. You can run 5 or 10 magazine ads for every TV ad -
who are you to say they'll get more sales from a TV ad? (5 or 10 times more
sales, to justify the increased cost?)
Ultimately, I think this thread comes down to this: A lot of people out
there are tired of hearing "What's that?" when they say they own an Amiga, and
want an ad campaign that teaches most people what it is. IBM and McDonalds can
afford ad campaigns solely intended to increase name recognition. Commodore has
to use its ads to increase sales.
I.C. Commodore quality sucks
This one divides into two subsidiaries:
I.C.1 Why can't I expand my A500 as easily as I could a B2000?
Folks, you get what you pay for. You paid quite a bit of money, and you got
a hell of a computer - but you didn't pay for a 2000 and it isnt't reasonable
to expect to effectively GET a 2000.
"Why is the power supply so wimpy?" Big supplies are expensive and they had
to keep the cost down. If you wanted a bigger supply, why didn't you by a 2000?
"Howcome when I put two expansion drives on my A500 without an extra supply
it starts acting flakey?" See comments about supplies.
I felt like putting more such complaints here, but they all have effectively
the same answer ("The 500 is not top-of-the-line, why are you expecting
top-of-the-line performance from it?"), so I won't bother. (By the way, I own a
1000 which is even less expandable than the 500 by all accounts, and I'm
perfectly satisfied. I knew what I was getting when I bought it and it has
performed beyond my expectations.)
I.C.2 My A500 just died - obviously their manufacturing sucks.
There is no such thing as 0%-failure in a manufactured product. There will
be a certain proportion of field failures. The manufacturer can drop this -
BUT IT COSTS MONEY AND ADDS TO THE SALES PRICE. Not to say that Commodore is
selling shoddy products, only that if you try to achieve extremely ultra-low
failure rate, it will raise your manufacturing price.
I used to work for Tektronix, and that company has a policy of "quality no
matter the price". If they were making the 500, you'd have a very VERY low
failure rate - and it would cost $3000 and they'd only be able to make 5000 of
them a year. (But none of them would fail!).
Let's not generalize too far, shall we? ONE dead A500 doesn't mean ALL of
them are dying. (And don't accuse me of advocating a high field failure rate.
That's not what I'm saying at all.)
II. Moderator bashing
"Why is the moderation of sources.amiga and binaries.amiga so slow?" I have a
feeling most of us don't understant what's involved in this job or we would be
less critical.
Moderation of these groups is not a full time job for these guys, they do it
in their spare time. They're students as I understand, and I know that I had
less spare time when *I* was a student than I do know.
If it were just a matter of taking what they receive, packaging it up and
shipping it, that would be one thing. But they are *TESTING* it to prove that
it isn't dangerous, does work and doesn't crash. That's a lot harder.
Instead of starting up guerilla source groups or complaining at the top of
your lungs, how about offering to help out? I bet if someone sent a letter to
the moderators saying "Assign me something to test" (and then retrieved it
with FTP from the untested directory) that we could get things moving. Then
the moderators could spend more time packaging/shipping and less time testing.
---------------------------------
I see a theme here: In every case someone is disappointed by a result of
another's efforts without having any sympathy for the difficulty of the
process.
Add to that a healthy done of hubris ("*I* can do that better myself!") and
what you get is a near-fatal attack of self-righteous indignation. (Can nemesis
be far behind?)
The last time this kind of flamage happened, we nearly drove the Commodore
folks off the net. I don't want to see that happen again.
How about everyone cool it, OK? Let's work on and change the things we can
change, and not work up a lot of bile about things beyond our control?
If you're worked up and feel like bitching about something, tell your
girlfriend or your priest, not this newsgroup. I know it's satisfying to "get
back at them" by telling 20,000 hard core users how you've been screwed, but
it's destructive nonetheless. If you have a concrete suggestion which is
practical for improvement, THEN let us hear it.
Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA
denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP)DMasterson@cup.portal.com (07/04/88)
In message <26452@bbn.COM>, denbeste@bbn.COM writes: >This group goes through cycles of positive outlook to negative outlook and back >again. Right now we're in a negative one. > Could be we're not getting enough input from the right areas to keep this on a positive outlook?!? (point to ponder for the rest of the article) And I'm not only talking about input here on the 'Net. >Here are some threads I see as destructive: > >I. Commodore bashing >I.A. Commodore marketing sucks > You mention 600,000 A500s in 8 months. Everybody else says its 600,000 Amigas (A500s, A1000s, & A2000s) WORLDWIDE in 4 years! By the numbers I've seen, I think its closer to 200,000 AMIGAs in 8 months. Does this hurt your appreciation of Commodore marketing any?? >I.B. Commodore advertising sucks > Commodore has been operating in the black now for (at least) 4 quarters (if I remember Max Toy correctly). Although they are not rich like IBM or Apple, surely they have some money to let people know what is up at Commodore. I have seen very little (I have seen more about what Commodore will have to offer from Comdex-type reports than I have advertisements of what Commodore has now! [that doesn't mean Commodore shouldn't announce anything new when they have it nearly ready -- they should let people know what's going on NOW]). >I.C. Commodore quality sucks >I.C.1 Why can't I expand my A500 as easily as I could a B2000? > You got a point here -- people gotta learn... >I.C.2 My A500 just died - obviously their manufacturing sucks. > You got another point here. The only thing I could say here is that I hope that any quality problems will come up as more are sold (how many remember the quality of the original IBM PCs - you pay for being first in line in this business). I also hope that Commodore will do as good a job in remembering their original customers when improvements come out as they have done in the past (the A1000 upgrade). >II. Moderator bashing > I don't follow this enough to comment on this. >--------------------------------- > >The last time this kind of flamage happened, we nearly drove the Commodore >folks off the net. I don't want to see that happen again. > True, but I hope honest opinions (dissension?) are not taken as JUST flamage. >Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA >denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) David Masterson ^-^ DMasterson@cup.portal.com (@v@) \_/ =^=^=