elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) (06/09/87)
Comment on marketing for business professionals: Someone mentioned playing up
the graphics. That's an excercise in redundancy. Your average "power user"
(bletch!) professional has heard about a computer called "an Amoeba or
something like that" that "has great graphics and plays great games". Ask him
to consider BUYING one, and he says "what? But I want to get my work
done, not play games!". This has been the attitude of many of the IBM users
that I have talked to at USL and on the local bulletin boards. Any advertising
will have to stress that there ARE things that can be done with the Amiga,
that cannot be done with conventional computers like the IBM PC. For example,
a typical business professional type, with one of Kivolowitzs card cages with
8 megabytes of RAM, stressing the fact that there's no 640K barrier, that huge
worksheets can be run that cannot run on an IBM compatible computer, and that
furthermore, with multitasking he can easily do.... er.... well... whatever
business people do, that's hard on PCs but easy on the Amiga. Like perhaps
saying "With the Amiga, EVERY program can be a Sidekick-like popup, so you can
pop up your PROFESSIONAL QUALITY WORD PROCESSOR while at the same time using
your PROFESSIONAL QUALITY SPREADSHEET". The fact that there's memory expansion
and hard disk drives available also has to be pressed through... I've talked
to many people who think there is NOT a hard drive available for the Amiga, or
that if there is one, it "costs $1500, of course."
I am unconvinced that Amiga can make inroads into the Fortune 500. However, I
STILL believe that the Amiga can make inroads in SMALL BUSINESS. The following
are necessary to convince a small businessman that your computer is the one to
buy:
a) PRICE. A small businessman cannot, alas, afford an expensive computer. So
he does NOT choose his computer on basis of name brand. I have seen small
businessmen running on everything from Apple ][s to Commodore 64s to cheap IBM
clones. A small businessman chooses the least expensive computer that is
b) RELIABLE AND WITH FAST SERVICE, because he can't afford for his computer
to go down, and
c) Capable of doing what he needs to do, which is generally accounting,
inventory control, minor word processing, and whatever else needs doing. So
you must convince him that both the hardware and software are available for
doing these tasks. Note that for accounting purposes, two things are
necessary: 1) a hard drive, and 2) the ability to expand when the records
overflow the hard drive (note that there's some small businesses with 100
megabytes of database running on IBM AT clones).
Where the Amiga stands: on a), the A-2000 is too expensive. The small
businessman can go to his local Discount Computer Store and buy an IBM AT
clone with an 80 megabyte hard drive for the same price as a bare Amiga 2000
with NO hard drive. on b), the Amiga is reliable (my local dealer STILL hasn't
had the opportunity to swap out an Amiga circuit board yet), but, alas,
there's too few dealers, and the dealers that do exist, generally give
haphazard service, mostly because the Amiga is such a small percentage of
their profit margin. Not to mention there being no on-site service agreements
available. on c), the software is available, and there IS hard drives
available, but not the big ones that small business needs, probably because
there's been no demand due the fact that no small businesses have bought
Amigas because they don't know about it!
Possible outlets for Amiga advertising, and markets reached:
1) Television. There are two main markets reachable here with any
efficiency:
a) The consumer market. A-500 ads should play well here. The only problem is
that the consumer market has shrunken considerably... the kind of person who
would buy an A-500 would be people like me (a poor college student), a person
with a C-64 who has discovered "C" or found some use for his computer that has
outgrown his computer, or other home hobbiests who have outgrown their C-64.
The rest of the home market consists of i) doctors, lawyers, etc. who have
heard about computers and want one of their own just to see what it's like,
and ii) kids who have been introduced to computers in school, who want one of
their own. There is also a large percentage of iii) Housewives and others with
spare time, who have heard about computers and also want to see what they're
like. The kids go for C-64s, because parents are generally cheapskates where
expensive equipment is concerned (probably remembering all the expensive toys
bought in earlier years that ended up at the back of the closet, and counting
a home computer as just another expensive toy). The housewives go for C-64s,
because they hold the purse strings and understand just how little money is
left in the budget to spend on such "frills". The doctors, lawyers, etc. go
for any sort of computer, you find them with everything from C-64s to IBM ATs,
in totally unpredictable fashion.
So Commodore advertising the Commodore 64 as the "computer for people who
don't know what a computer is and don't want to buy an expensive computer
until they find out" during family-oriented shows would be smart. But I can't
think of any other Commodore equipment that would be good for TV advertising
in this manner. Remember, the C-64 is being used as a "hook" here... if they
get deep into computing, they'll eventually want to upgrade to a larger
computer, and if they already have "Commodore" all over their computer
equipment, you don't have to tell them where a Commodore dealer is, and you
don't need to convince them that Commodore computers can do things besides
play games.
Television market #2: Business professionals. But advertising during sports
events is VERY expensive. It could possibly reach small businessmen, but
there's probably more efficient venues than television. Still a couple of TV
ads of the "reach small business" type would probably be useful, so long as
C-A doesn't shoot the whole budget on them.
Television market #3: Arts and music. Some cable channels cater specifically
to arts and music enthusiasts, and advertising on them is VERY cheap. Alas,
the audience is also correspondingly small... most cable systems don't carry
such programming, preferring drech like CBN and ESPN and USA Network and WTBS.
An earlier ad mentioned, done entirely on the Amiga including both sound and
picture, would probably go over well here.
Magazines.
1) Business magazines: VERY expensive, and your average small businessman
(remember, we just blew off the Fortune 500 as IBM-fetishes) doesn't read
them. He doesn't have time (I know, I AM one!). If he reads magazines, they
are usually specific to his trade, e.g. an EE running a small oilfield
instrumentation company is more likely to read an instrumentation trade
journal, than look at Business Week.
2) Graphic arts journals and magazines. Here is where Commodore should put a
LOT of advertisements. Note that it's not good enough to just advertise the
computer -- you must also advertise that MIDI ports, GENLOCK and digitizers,
and so forth are available for the Amiga. Just like the business person
advertisement must feature themes of use to businessmen, such as mungo memory,
graphics and music advertisements must feature themes of use to artists, such
as "Music and graphics systems are available to allow you to compose your
music on an electronic keybord, edit it using the computer, play it back
through the keyboard, and print out a professional-quality score... now you
can concentrate on your music, instead of stumbling over details while
scribbling on music paper with grubby pencils".
Note that C-A in conjunction with its advertising agency should hire a music
consultant part-time (anybody who knows a little bit about music and has
composed a few dittys, doesn't have to be a big name), provide him with
hardware and software, give him a little payment, and let him help write the
music advertisements. The graphics advertisements would be another problem,
however... most commercial artists aren't as... errr... poverty-stricken as
their musical brothers, and are more set in their ways (pencil & paper doesn't
interfere with art the way it interferes with recording your musical
compositions for posterity).
Magazine class #3) Computer trade journals. Small businessmen are likely to
read several issues of these in order to come to the decision about which
computer to buy. Commodore should take steps to increase the visibility of the
Amiga in such magazines, and do advertising of the
"convince-small-businessman-that-it-does-more-than-play-games" sort, as well
as advertising of the "the ultimate power machine for the ultimate power user"
sort (showing off the memory capacity and multitasking ability). I doubt many
of the latter will jump on board, being too stuck up on the IBM AT at the
moment, but some might, perhaps. And it would help convince the small
businessman of the "it does more than play games", although not do the whole
job ("yeah, it does more than play games, it keeps big spreadsheets and
multitasks, but will it do my accounting for me?").
Magazine class #4) News magazines. Some small businessmen read these (I do),
but many are probably too busy. Considering the price of advertising in such,
probably a losing proposition.
Magazine class #5) TV/video trade journals. For example, Acadiana Open Channel
here in Lafayette uses an Amiga with Genlock to do all their video
sub-titling. For smaller independent stations that are already having
financial difficulties due to the skyrocketing costs of syndicated
programming, a secondary video computer of such low cost would be a godsend.
And for non-profit public entities such as AOC, the Amiga is literally manna
from heaven.
Additional advertising sources:
1) Local radio stations. Probably not a great idea, because it's the shotgun
approach -- fire in the general vicinity of a few customers, and hope a pellet
hits.
2) Local newspapers. Our local Amiga dealers advertised fairly heavily in the
local newspaper, but found that it was futile. Of course, some of that might
be due to the insipid ad copy coming from Commodore!
My recommendations, in order of which I think priorities should lie:
#1, and most important, advertise in computer trade journals. The people who
read these magazines are the people who sell your computers, and the people
who advise the man-on-the-street as to which computer to buy. Changing the
general impression of the Amiga in these magazines is extremely important.
I've given you a market -- small business -- to target, and suggested some
deficiencies in the Amiga image to alter ("it does more than play games, it
does....") and some strengths of the Amiga to target ("power, memory, &
multitasking", "handles the needs of your small business").
#2, advertise in music and TV trade journals.
#3, if sales of the low-end computers continue slumping, an advertising
campaign stressing the low cost and "the computer for people who aren't sure
they need a computer".
#4, possibly a few TV ads during weekend sports events. But due to the high
cost and low benefit, this should be a LOW priority.
Comments are welcome. Thanks for reading this far!
* Airwick *
--
Eric Green elg%usl.CSNET CS student, University of SW Louisiana
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Apprentice Haquer, Bayou Telecommunications
Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 BBS phone #: 318-984-3854 300/1200 baud
Lafayette, LA 70509 I disclaim my existence, and yours, too.rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) (06/11/87)
Morgan Stanley just bought $1M worth of Suns, citing the existence of NFS as a major factor. According to a correspondant from U. Lowell (sorry i forgot your name!) NFS works on the Amiga. I do not know why Commodore is not pushing the Ameristar product if it works, because the Amiga ought to be quite an attractive machine, especially if the ether card supports all the other TCP protocols too. Notice that Apple has begun delivering a crude sort of NFS-like system for the MAC. But judging from other submissions the Amiga NFS can interoperate (lovely and important buzz-word, that) with Suns. I do not plan to upgrade to a hard disk, but eventually maybe i can get the card instead- and as our many Sun 3/50s have convinced me, with NFS you sure don't need a disk per CPU!. For $700 or so I get 1.5 Gb of disk, a good deal ... Xenix does not yet have NFS, MAC certainly does not, Amiga does, and it is compatible with suns and therefore presumably the VAX world. Commodore, is this an opportunity? Looks like one. -- Ron Minnich
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (06/23/87)
in article <977@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) says: > Keywords: markets, media, changing Amiga image > > the software is available, and there IS [are] hard drives > available, but not the big ones that small business needs, probably because > there's been no demand due the fact that no small businesses have bought > Amigas because they don't know about it! Let's see about that....Hmmm, the latest Byte by Byte hard disk ad has hard disk sizes ranging from 20 Megabytes to 80 Megabytes. Of course, they use the IBM style ST-506 interface, so they're stuck with whatever most IBM drive makers size their drives to. Let's look at C-Ltd. They use SCSI, and their latest ad lists prices for drives from 22 Megabytes to 150 Megabytes, though they also mention that sizes up to 750 Megabytes are available upon request. Do small businesses with IBM PC's typically use drives larger than this? That's a pretty expensive drive you're talking about, and at least until the most recent releases of MS-DOS, you'd have needed around 20 or so partitions on that big hard drive with a PC. > Eric Green elg%usl.CSNET CS student, University of SW Louisiana -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh "The A2000 Guy" BIX : hazy "These are the days of miracle and wonder" -P. Simon
jmpiazza@sunybcs.UUCP (06/24/87)
In article <2031@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >Let's see about that....Hmmm, the latest Byte by Byte hard disk ad has >hard disk sizes ranging from 20 Megabytes to 80 Megabytes. Of course, they >use the IBM style ST-506 interface, so they're stuck with whatever most >IBM drive makers size their drives to ... Make that ST-506 AND SCSI, no? Flip side, joe piazza --- Cogito ergo equus sum. CS Dept. SUNY at Buffalo 14260 UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!jmpiazza CS: jmpiazza@cs.buffalo.edu BI: jmpiazza@sunybcs
rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) (06/24/87)
Keywords:nfs, ethernet
how to get a 4gb magnetic disk for $700? Get NFS. No need to run TeX
on your amiga; run it on the vax (latex amiga:mytexfile.tex).
Imagine the ad:
Mr. Pc PowerUser: " I have 70 mb on my pc. What
do you have on that toy Amiga?"
Mr. Amiga Goodguy: Oh, about 5 gb, last time i checked. Of course,
as soon as the 3081 with TCP/IP and NFS comes one line
it ought to triple.
Mr. Apple Lawsuit: Yes, but i can share files with other Macintoshes!
Mr. Amiga Goodguy: I can share files with other Amigas, suns, vaxex,
in fact any of the (big number) machines that
support NFS.
You want to fit the Amiga into the corporate environment?
THen you have to (buzz-word alert) interoperate. And, evidently,
the amiga does, far better than the mac or ps/2. Surprising.
More surprising that everyone has been so quiet about it!
ron
--
Ron Minnich richard@pnet02.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/26/87)
Problem is, my Amiga is at home, and my Convex/Alliant/Domain net is at work.
Besides I'd like NFS and Apollos NCS, that way I could have Bouncing Bezier
surfaces! Real time Mandelbrot sets! Zoom!
UUCP: {ihnp4!crash, hplabs!hp-sdd!crash}!gryphon!pnet02!richard
INET: richard@pnet02.CTS.COMminer@hawk.CS.ULowell.Edu (Rich Miner) (06/30/87)
In article <804@gryphon.CTS.COM> (Richard Sexton) writes: >Problem is, my Amiga is at home, and my Convex/Alliant/Domain net is at work. >Besides I'd like NFS and Apollos NCS, that way I could have Bouncing Bezier >surfaces! Real time Mandelbrot sets! Zoom! We just got the Beta version of NCS from apollo, with sources, and we have Apollo's, Amiga's, Vax's, a Sun 3/280, and an Alliant all on the same ethernet. Now if Ameristar could just get me the programmers interface to their sockets and rpc library we could have the Amiga's tied in beautifully to these other systems. It would have looked great at SIGGRAPH to have an Amiga in Apollo's booth. Would anyone else be interested in NCS for the Amiga? Rich Miner ULowell-Cntr for Productivity !ulowell!miner 617-452-5000x2693
childs@cadnetix.UUCP (David Childs) (07/01/87)
In article <295@louie.udel.EDU>, rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) writes: > Mr. Pc PowerUser: " I have 70 mb on my pc. What > do you have on that toy Amiga?" > Mr. Amiga Goodguy: Oh, about 5 gb, last time i checked. Of course, as soon > as the 3081 with TCP/IP and NFS ... ought to triple. > Mr. Apple Lawsuit: Yes, but i can share files with other Macintoshes! > Mr. Amiga Goodguy: I can share files with other Amigas, suns, vaxex, in fact > any of the (big number) machines that support NFS. Sorry to ruin your ad idea, but at Cadnetix we have around 100 IBM PC's running on our network with ethernet (sp?) cards and running NFS. I'm not saying that they are great machines, but they have much quicker access to their own hard disks, and I have no idea how speed compares with NFS. I like the ad with the Amiga user watching an Amiga ad on his screen. One twist would be to show the ad, and back away (showing that the ad was on the Amiga's Screen), with the users boss telling him to get back to work, with the user stating that he was doing a table calculation or something. David Childs childs@cadnetix.UUCP ...!seismo!ico!hao!cadnetix!childs