kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (05/15/87)
[ For all you do ... this line's for you ... ] *** WARNING: Flame Zone Ahead *** The following was posted on our internal Amiga conference by Pete Jordan. Is there ANYBODY in Marketing at CBM that knows ANYTHING about how to promote anything besides C64's? Better question ... *is* there a Marketing organization at CBM? Gawd, what an opportunity you have had with the Amiga, and how poorly you've capitalized on it! Where do you think Apple would be if they had not participated heavily in things like MacExpo, ADVERTISING, and 3rd-party developer support? The only thing you've done right WRT the Amiga (aside from the design and implementation of the machine itself), is by continuing to support the machine via the CATS folks on the various networks, etc. Possibly this has merely been an oversight on the part of Upper (mis)Management, however *please* DON'T attempt to rectify the situation! I dunno ... perhaps shooting one's self in the foot (and other parts of one's anatomy) repeatedly feels good ... I must remember to try this myself sometime when I'm bored, or have nothing better to do ... Bah! Fooey!!! /kim *** End Flame Zone ... here's Pete's posting *** > AmigaWorld Exposition Cancelled > > The AmigaWorld Exposition scheduled for september 11-13, 1987, at > Brooks Hall in San Francisco has been indefinitely postponed. > > Quoting from a letter from Mike Hallal, "As you already know, > Commodore International has recently undergone some upper-management > changes, and this has made it difficult for us to proceed. We feel > that going ahead with the show at this time could prove detrimental to > both our exhibitors and attendees. We would like to thank you for > your interest in AmigaWorld Exposition, and we hope to put together a > solid event for you in the future." > > On a brighter side, PC Magazine, dated June 9, 1987 had a nice full > featured article entitled Commodore Comes Home. It reviews the > PC10-1 & 2 and generally gives good marks even though the machines are > a bit dated. > > One interesting quote from the article: > "Finding a success among the manufacturers of the so-called home > computers that were popular a few years ago is a chore as thankless > as sending Diogenes looking for an honest man. The casualities are > many: Atari's 400 and 800, Coleco's Adam, Mattell's various models, > Texas Instruments' TI99, and even IBM's PCjr. > > "Commodore ranks as the sole survivor from that era of marketing errors > -- its C64 is the only machine from the home computer's heyday that's > still being sold. The aging C64 endures as Commodore's top-selling > system. Commodore thus has the dubious distinction of being the leader > in a disappearing market. > > "With some clones selling at street prices half the suggested retail > of the PC 10s, the future of thes Commodore machines appears doubtful. > But if the PC10s are offered at the same deep discounts as are other > Commodore products, they may just prove to be runaway successes." [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ] -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25
akw@osupyr.UUCP (05/16/87)
In article <6648@amdahl.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: > >Gawd, what an opportunity you have had with the Amiga, and how poorly >you've capitalized on it! Where do you think Apple would be if they >had not participated heavily in things like MacExpo, ADVERTISING, and >3rd-party developer support? > >The only thing you've done right WRT the Amiga (aside from the design >and implementation of the machine itself), is by continuing to support Hate to be a NITPICK, but didn't Amiga Computer, Inc., NOT Commodore Business Machines, design and implement the actual Amiga 1000? Too bad that Amiga couldn't have made it on its own? _I'M KIDDING_...no major flame wars here -- its just a nice day in Columbus to read news. (Yes, I do own an ST.) >> as sending Diogenes looking for an honest man. The casualities are >> many: Atari's 400 and 800, Coleco's Adam, Mattell's various models, Gee, the last time I checked I still saw Atari's 8bit line selling, quite nicely. _All_ models, in fact. >UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com > or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim --- Andy Weaver {ihnp4}|cbatt|osu-eddie|osupyr|akw College of Business Computing Services TS6471@OHSTMVSA.BITNET The Ohio State University (614) 293-1195 or 292-1741 ___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___
gary@eddie.MIT.EDU (Gary Samad) (05/21/87)
To quote from a letter that {_I received from AmigaWorld magazine about
the canceling of the AmigaWorld Expo:
"Before announcing the Expo, AmigaWorld and World Expo, the
show producer, obtained a commitment of support from the senior
management at Commodore International to participate as the
anchor exhibitor. As you may know, a mangement shake-up at
Commodore in April resulted in the firing of many senior and
middle-level managers, including the Chief Executive Officer
and the General Manager. The new management at Commodore has
decided to withdraw Commodore's commitment to the AmigaWorld
Expo at this time."
Come on Irving, is this the "New Marketing Effort?"
Irritated,
Garyklm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin McBride) (05/22/87)
Gee, I think I'm having flashbacks... A few months ago I made my very
first USENET posting ever on this group asking (Leo primarily) if the
announcement of the A2000 would mean that us folks with A1000s would
"have a special place reserved in Hell for us right next to the orphaned
Osborne owners?"
Funny that I should think of that again. Only this time the scope is
expanded quite a bit: Are Amiga owners in general going to be orphaned
because of Commodore's incompetence? I know that I am making a strong
statement, but maybe it's time for some strong statements to be made.
[*** I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING ***]
[*** IT SMELLS LIKE...LIKE...MAJOR FLAMES ***]
Maybe it's time that upper (mis)management at C/A be strapped into
chairs and forced to read this news.group all night long! Maybe
then they would realize what a gold mine they really have and what
schmucks they are being!
Who in their right f----ing minds would just throw away the opportunity
to drive their machine right into the forefront of personal computers?
(Notice refusal to use PC acronym in sentence that refers to Amiga.
OOPS, that didn't work, did it? :-))
IBM is saying "F--- You!" to all of us "wierdo" computer science types
and is going back to cater to the snobbish stuffed shirt MIS market.
Fine, if that's the market they want, they can have it!
The Atari ST is still a toy and still a piece of S--t! The Amiga may
have it's problems, but at least they didn't try to glue a toy keyboard
on top of an over glorified video game box that doesn't have an internal
power supply or disk drive! Get a life!
Come On Commodore! Get off your asses and get out there and prove to
us loyal owners (and prospective owners as well) that you are deserving
of our continued loyalty!
[SNUPH PHLAMES]
Disclaimer: There. I feel much better now. My therapist says that
I need to act out my frustrations more often.
To rip off somebody else's disclaimer:
"I don't smoke. Flames to /dev/null"
P.S. I finally broke down and brought Amy into my office. She is now
happily conversing with other computers here and I am getting
lot's of neat things accomplished! Thanks Commodore for creating
such a wonderful computer! I also have finally started catching
up on the backlog of stuff from the net.
I got Robotroff running. Leo, you're sick! And I mean that in a
complimentary way! Thanks!!!
--
Kevin McBride - Eikonix Corp. A Kodak Co. - 23 Crosby Dr. - Bedford, MA 01730
{{harvard,ll-xn}!adelie,{decvax,allegra,talcott}!encore}!munsell!klm
Disclaimer: My employers try to sell stuff to themselves, so don't blame
them for my brain-damaged opinions!dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (05/22/87)
I will attempt to make a coherent reply: >Funny that I should think of that again. Only this time the scope is >expanded quite a bit: Are Amiga owners in general going to be orphaned >because of Commodore's incompetence? I know that I am making a strong >statement, but maybe it's time for some strong statements to be made. Look at it this way. Since Commodore is now completely dependant on the Amiga's success (as far as its creditors are concerned), if we Amiga owners get orphaned, it will probably be due to commodore going out of business. I daresay that this is one end Commodore is striving to avoid. >Maybe it's time that upper (mis)management at C/A be strapped into >chairs and forced to read this news.group all night long! Maybe >then they would realize what a gold mine they really have and what >schmucks they are being! Fortunetly not many (if any) are. Because if they were, I doubt they would be after reading your message. Getting back on track: The only feasible way of getting our opinions used to their full potential is through all the C-A people on the net who are reading this newsgroup. Certainly they have a better chance at integrating the ideas and knowlege into C-A than some executive far removed from the actual development. These people are also much closer to our level (as in recognition. The paradigm is such that we end users are usually not treated with any amount of respect when conversing directly with almost *any* executive). BTW note the following: Fledging companies, though small, tend to be very well integrated. Many people seem to have the idea that integration problems arise due to a company getting too big. In fact, integration has almost nothing to do with the size of the company. Simply put, it is the executive... controller of the $$ flow, new projects, etc... who is getting farther and farther removed from the bowels of the company as it is growing larger. IBM is a case in point of this extreme. Apple is another case, but they aren't so far gone. Commodore is up there with IBM. Atari? no comment. A good example of a well integrated (and currently small) company? How about Adobe. SUN microsystems is an excellent example of a company on the low (well integrated) end of the scale. >The Atari ST is still a toy and still a piece of S--t! The Amiga may >have it's problems, but at least they didn't try to glue a toy keyboard >on top of an over glorified video game box that doesn't have an internal >power supply or disk drive! Get a life! It is generally agreed that the Atari ST was not ready for release when it was released. In my opinion, it needs at least another year's worth of in-house development. But then again, Atari didn't really have much choice in the release date with the Amiga and new Macs comming out. Though the hardware is certainly not a toy, its OS is, and this in itself will be its downfall. >Come On Commodore! Get off your asses and get out there and prove to >us loyal owners (and prospective owners as well) that you are deserving >of our continued loyalty! Loyalty is the wrong word for it. My respect for Commodore as a whole extends only to their ability to mass produce. In fact, I have a certain disrespect for the idiots who are mismanaging all the bright minds on lower levels. My respect for the Amiga extends only to the people who developed the hardware and software. I have, of course, respect for a great many other people and things (many parts of the C-A support group fall into this catagory), so don't take the latter as a complete list. One can also simply *like* a product without being loyal to it. -Matt
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (05/23/87)
"Commodore could take marketing lessons from AT&T." -- Jerry Pournelle In article <1044@pinney.munsell.UUCP> klm@pinney.UUCP (Kevin McBride) writes: >Gee, I think I'm having flashbacks... A few months ago I made my very >first USENET posting ever on this group asking (Leo primarily) if the >announcement of the A2000 would mean that us folks with A1000s would >"have a special place reserved in Hell for us right next to the orphaned >Osborne owners?" > I must have missed that. No, I don't think we're going to be orphaned. Too many hackers like the Amiga to let it die so easily. I think it will survive despite Commodore. I think the 2000 is a slap in the face to Amiga Los Gatos (as though closing them down wasn't), and don't think much about it. Lest we forget that it was hackers and us computer science dweebs that created the micro industry (never mind about Apple). We were kind of looked at funny when we bought computers, and were asked, "You paid *how much* for that?" But we stuck it out, and history has proven us right. Don't give up the ship just yet; we haven't even begun to sink. >Who in their right....minds would just throw away the opportunity >to drive their machine right into the forefront of personal computers? Unfortunately, American industry management is at a near-standstill. This is not confined to just the computer industry. It's everywhere. The mindset that is recursively pervading American industrial management is, "Play it safe." Just look at the auto indistry. When was the last time you saw an American car that didn't look like a box or like a Camaro? With cheesy-looking chrome and photographed wood? Creativity and imagination are stifled in many of today's industries. That's why were being beaten to a pulp by the Japanese. (You'd think the Japanese competition would force American industry to innovate. But, nooooo. They go to Congress to ask for protectionist tariffs.) I started reading the first few pages of, "In Search of Excellence," which describes this problem, and what distinguishes a run-of-the-mill company to a truly excellent one. One of these elements was a management that didn't mind taking risks. One of the companies discussed was (yes!) IBM. IBM (internally, anyway) does take risks. The IBM-PC, like it or not, *was* a risk for them. Sadly, the rest is history. The Amiga is a big risk for Commodore. It's totally new, and doesn't conform to any standards, even their own. I'm sure that some managers in Commodore are wondering why the machine is selling at all. Demographically, it's totally off the graph. Yet it continues to sell. Must be a lot of head-scratching going on. Maybe we should be force-feeding "In Search of Excellence" down Commodore's throat instead of this newsgroup. >IBM is saying "[censored] You!" to all of us "wierdo" computer science types >and is going back to cater to the snobbish stuffed shirt MIS market. >Fine, if that's the market they want, they can have it! > So far, there are only 150,000 of us weirdo computer science types. We all bought Amigas. All the $$$$ is in America's MIS departments. Now, if someone could port OS-VM to the Amiga... :-) Better still! If someone would write a COBOL compiler for the Amiga, there's a TON of applications waiting to be ported. >The Atari ST is still a toy [ ... ] > True, but people have gotten tired of their C-64s whose disk drives run at 3000 baud, and have decided to upgrade their toys. We, on the other hand, wanted more. We got it. So why are you complaining? > Thanks Commodore for creating such a wonderful computer! > Without slighting Commodore's contribution, your praise rightly goes to the people at Amiga Los Gatos. Open your Amiga to discover their names. > I got Robotroff running. Leo, you're sick! [ ... ] > Aw, shucks..... _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) (05/24/87)
In article <1044@pinney.munsell.UUCP> klm@pinney.UUCP (Kevin McBride) writes: >Maybe it's time that upper (mis)management at C/A be strapped into >chairs and forced to read this news.group all night long! Maybe >then they would realize what a gold mine they really have and what >schmucks they are being! I seriously doubt it. We are for the most part hackers around here. Our opinions on what OTHER NORMAL people will think aren't taken seriously by most upper management types. After all, we're pretty weird people. :) >Who in their right f----ing minds would just throw away the opportunity >to drive their machine right into the forefront of personal computers? My favorite reply to this is "Crazy and Commodore have more in common than the first letter". When I first read about the Amiga I went "Oh BOY!!" then I got to the bottom of the article and read "Commodore", I went "OH NOOOOOO!!!!". So far all my fears except one have come to pass, despite ALL my worry my Amiga has been a solid machine. I've run it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since Dec '85. I only need to give it a "rest break" overnight every three months or so. (It gets real flakey so I power it off over-night) >Come On Commodore! Get off your asses and get out there and prove to >us loyal owners (and prospective owners as well) that you are deserving >of our continued loyalty! I figured out in November '86 that the only way I was going to get any REAL changes made on my Amiga was if I made them. This was partly triggered by my experiences with getting bugs fixed by C-A tech support (The CATS crowd). I found that if I wanted the bug fixed it was best to fix it myself and then call Andy and say "Andy, there's this move.l d1,... in trackdisk.device you might want to fix". If you called Andy and said "Andy, the UPDATE command in trackdisk.device causes a guru #3 when updateing to a WP'd disk" lord only knows when I would have seen a fix. (The bug had been there since 1.0) So now I don't call CATS when I have a problem. I filed the application for the new developers program in the circular file when it came in. When something bites me again and again and again (like the sorry collection of amigadog library calls) I just knuckle down and find a solution. If the solution will take lots of re-work of code and time is short, well that feature causing the hassle goes bye bye. I lose, the client looses, and the world at large looses. But the cold hard reality of life is that C-A doesn't seem to have it's heart into supporting us. And they do their best to ham string the CATS people. I've seen several episodes where TS people at Commodore got TOO helpful and got called on the carpet for it. Everything has to go through channels, if the channel gobbles up the info you wanted then too bad charlie. I can still remember going down to Cupertino in the early days of the Mac and talking to one of the TS people down there. A comment he made still floats to the top of my mind every so often "We practically give away the shop here when it comes to source code". When was the last time you got any source to some piece of the Amiga from CATS? I don't mean some program they've hacked together, I mean something like serial.device (Apple gave theirs away!) Well now I use MCC's disasm and MAKE my own source code for disk based stuff and make it do what I want (relabel RAM:, tuned parallel.device etc etc etc.) Results come MUCH quicker than begging C-A to make them. How long have we waited to relabel RAM:? Since version 1.0? I wait no longer. Don't ask me to mail it to you either, its clear that C-A is feeling over protective these days. Recoding BCPL object is a bitch, but I expect to have a ram-handler that I can give away that will be smaller, faster(!), and relabelable later this summer that I can give away. You can log into GEnie and grab my tuned/debugged parallel.device though. :) To paraphrase that great American "Ask not what Commodore can do for you, but rather what you can do for yourself". Cause baby, Commodore ain't gonna do JACK for you! Scott Turner -- L5 Computing, the home of Merlin, Arthur, Excalibur and the CRAM. GEnie: JST | UUCP: stride!l5comp!scotty | 12311 Maplewood Ave; Edmonds WA 98020 If Motorola had wanted us to use BPTR's they'd have built in shifts on A regs [ BCPL? Just say *NO*! ] (I don't smoke, send flames to /dev/null)
andy@cbmvax.UUCP (05/26/87)
In article <142@l5comp.UUCP> scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes: It feels like Monday. Warning, flames ahead. (This will get a bit hot...) >I figured out in November '86 that the only way I was going to get any REAL >changes made on my Amiga was if I made them. This was partly triggered by my >experiences with getting bugs fixed by C-A tech support (The CATS crowd). I >found that if I wanted the bug fixed it was best to fix it myself and then >call Andy and say "Andy, there's this move.l d1,... in trackdisk.device you >might want to fix". Well, the bugs you reported were fixed. All I asked for was code that demonstrated the problems you were having. Remember, you were asking for instant turnaround. Rather than wait for me to verify your bugs by writing a program that tried to do what you were asking, it would have been easier if you sent me what you were talking about. But you never did manage to actually send me any examples. So, while I appreciated the extra effort you went to, just sending me the code that demonstrated the bug would have been enough. If you called Andy and said "Andy, the UPDATE command in >trackdisk.device causes a guru #3 when updateing to a WP'd disk" lord only >knows when I would have seen a fix. (The bug had been there since 1.0) Guess that's why you didn't report it. Have you reported it yet ? Still time for V1.3.. We get a fair number of bug reports. Sample code that shows the problem always helps. Otherwise, we have to write it before we can look at the bug. Presumably, if you've found the bug, you have something written. If its too much trouble for you to even send it in, then how can you expect special treatment ? (BTW, we did send you a couple of kickstarts with the bugs you reported fixed, right ?) Now that you have email, its even easier to send in bug reports. > >So now I don't call CATS when I have a problem. I filed the application for the >new developers program in the circular file when it came in. best not to call, then :-) >When something >bites me again and again and again (like the sorry collection of amigadog >library calls) I just knuckle down and find a solution. Well, this is one way to ensure that the bugs you find will never be fixed. (unless someone else finds them; nice guy) >When was the last time you got any source to some piece of the >Amiga from CATS? I don't mean some program they've hacked together, I mean Legal and upper management have their own reasons for keeping source confidential. Personally, my reason is this: We don't want people mucking around with the internals of the Amiga libraries and devices. Not only does this create a support nightmare when talking to developers, it causes a support nightmare when talking to users. And it makes upgrading the OS almost impossible. "But I saved 12 cycles by knowing that A6 held ExecBase, and A3 held GraphicBase", or the ever popular "I knew the routine used 123 bytes of stack, so that's how much I gave it." Sorry if you don't like the reasoning. >something like serial.device (Apple gave theirs away!) Well now I use MCC's >disasm and MAKE my own source code for disk based stuff and make it do what I >want (relabel RAM:, tuned parallel.device etc etc etc.) Results come MUCH >quicker than begging C-A to make them. How long have we waited to relabel RAM:? >Since version 1.0? I wait no longer. Don't ask me to mail it to you either, its >clear that C-A is feeling over protective these days. Recoding BCPL object is >a bitch, but I expect to have a ram-handler that I can give away that will be >smaller, faster(!), and relabelable later this summer that I can give away. >You can log into GEnie and grab my tuned/debugged parallel.device though. :) Now, this *is* interesting. What you are announcing is that you took the C-A parallel.device (which is written in assembler), disassembled it, made a few changes, and are distributing it ? Did you get permission ? Is this type of thing legal ? [A side note: assuming you did not get permission; you may have, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened...Is it especially intelligent to announce that you have done something like this in a forum that you know the copyright owner reads ??? And now probably is going to have to respond to in some fashion, like checking the whole thing out ?] Diasssembling a program, then reassembling it with a few changes does not make it yours. I'm not a lawyer, but I didn't think copyright laws had changed that much. The intelligent thing to do would have been to say to us, hey, the following changes in the parallel.device will do XXX for you. And, if you were correct, it would have found its way into the next release. But nooooooo. > >To paraphrase that great American "Ask not what Commodore can do for you, but >rather what you can do for yourself". Cause baby, Commodore ain't gonna do JACK >for you! > Speaking of which, I never did receive a copy of the program you were working on. >Scott Turner -- andy finkel {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy Commodore/Amiga "An end is always a new beginning." - Captain Cloud Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (05/28/87)
I know that the Amiga fanatics will insist on roasting me for this. Please e-mail your flames (to ...!ihnp4!mot!edge!doug) unless they are more than simple rebuttals and name-calling, okay? That way I'll read the flames, and the rest of the Amiga fans who already agree with you won't have to. Amiga's basic problem is simple. Commodore has not identified any market niches for it. A couple of market niches have stumbled onto it, mainly computer freaks who like nifty computer hardware just because it's nifty. It's hard for computer freaks to understand, but the fact is that nobody else gives a <<censored>> how nifty the hardware (or multi-tasking OS) is. Look at the IBM-PC. A most un-nifty box with a most un-nifty OS. And a rousing success. Because it does useful stuff at a reasonable price. The non-freak computer buyer is interested in these things: a) can the computer do what I want? b) can I get the hardware and software off-the-shelf to do what I want? c) is this the best/fastest/easiest-to-use system for doing what I want? d) is this the cheapest system for doing what I want? e) is the manufacturer reliable? f) can I upgrade the system later as my needs change? Of the above, only (a) is likely to be "yes" for the Amiga in any given application. And (d) is likely to be "no" for just about every application. In the case of the Amiga, much expense is incurred by the fancy graphics and sound. Any computer buyer who doesn't care about graphics and sound (including virtually all "business" computer buyers) is going to get something cheaper. A PC clone can now be obtained for under $600. Why pay twice as much for the Amiga? Whatever market niches the Amiga is going to succeed in are going to be heavily graphics and/or sound oriented. Aside from the computer freak market, and some design applications, I'm stumped. Sure, video games would be a market, but only if Amigas went for less than $300. Commodore needs to recognize the importance of the computer freak market for the Amiga. Apple turned its back on the hackers, and decided that the big bucks were in the business market. So they came out with the Apple /// and the Lisa, both dreadful flops. The MacIntosh is still floundering, although doing better since Apple accidentally created the "desktop publishing" market when it produced the LaserWriter. And everyone involved should be trying to identify other market niches. That is, market niches where the Amiga isn't just *an* answer, but where it is the *best* answer for the dollar. ... Now for some general spouting off... > "Commodore could take marketing lessons from AT&T." > -- Jerry Pournelle I think they did. That's why the Amiga is as big a seller as the AT&T Unix PC. AT&T can't market at all. If AT&T didn't own >95% of all long- distance communications circuits in the U.S., it'd be bankrupt by now. > Lest we forget that it was hackers and us computer science dweebs > that created the micro industry (never mind about Apple). We were kind > of looked at funny when we bought computers, and were asked, "You paid *how > much* for that?" But we stuck it out, and history has proven us right. No no no. The dweebs paid $2000 for an Apple ][ with 16K of memory and one ghastly slow low-capacity floppy disk. But what became history was the $2000 IBM-PC with 256K of memory and 2 fast 360Kb floppies. The folks who bought the PCs *still* look at the early Apple ][ purchasers as "tetched in the haid" for paying so much and getting so little. > >IBM is saying "[censored] You!" to all of us "wierdo" computer science types > >and is going back to cater to the snobbish stuffed shirt MIS market. > >Fine, if that's the market they want, they can have it! > > > So far, there are only 150,000 of us weirdo computer science > types. We all bought Amigas. All the $$$$ is in America's MIS > departments. I agree. IBM is doing the right thing in locking up the Fortune 500 market. > Now, if someone could port OS-VM to the Amiga... :-) > Better still! If someone would write a COBOL compiler for the Amiga, > there's a TON of applications waiting to be ported. No way. There's just no way that the Amiga (or any other machine) is going to break IBM's hold on the Fortune 500 marketplace. IBM won't let it happen. Bear in mind that IBM was crying and moaning that it *only* made 5 billion (with a B) dollars in *profit* (after expenses) last year. A company like Commodore which takes in only $1 billion in a year and can't manage to keep a penny as profit can't hope to succeed in an attack on IBM in the market that IBM considers to be "top priority." It'll have to find a market that IBM won't fight that hard to keep. As for COBOL, COBOL programs are written for totally different applications than what you'd run on a small machine. Heck, you don't even see any real amount of COBOL usage on IBM-PCs. COBOL is used to drive huge disks, tapes, and fast printers. None of which the Amiga has. Give up on the "business" marketplace. The Amiga hasn't a chance there. Quit beating your heads on a brick wall. Go find a marketplace where the Amiga can succeed. Attack that market with good applications, and you'll have a success. -- Doug Pardee -- Edge Computer Corp., Scottsdale, AZ -- ...!ihnp4!mot!edge!doug
hah@isum.intel.com (Hans Hansen) (06/01/87)
In article <784@edge.UUCP> doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) writes: >I know that the Amiga fanatics will insist on roasting me for this. >There's just no way that the Amiga (or any other machine) is going >to break IBM's hold on the Fortune 500 marketplace. IBM won't let it happen. >Give up on the "business" marketplace. The Amiga hasn't a chance there. >Quit beating your heads on a brick wall. Go find a marketplace where the >Amiga can succeed. Attack that market with good applications, and you'll >have a success. >Doug Pardee -- Edge Computer Corp. Nice try Doug, but I see here a man working for an IBM competitor in pure fear of the real potential of the Amiga. Hans
roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) (06/06/87)
In article <750@omepd> hah@isum.UUCP (Hans Hansen) writes: >In article <784@edge.UUCP> doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) writes: >>Give up on the "business" marketplace. The Amiga hasn't a chance there. >Nice try Doug, but I see here a man working for an IBM competitor in pure >fear of the real potential of the Amiga. This is interesting, since Edge (a) is not an "IBM competitor", except in the sense that anyone who makes computers of any size is an IBM competitor (Edge is certainly not in the PC class); and (b) I see no "fear of the real potential of the Amiga", only the understanding of just how difficult it will be for ANY vendor ever to have a significant impact in the desktop marketplace, expect with a clone. Clearly, Amiga's best chances are in niches which contain innovators, and which can take advantage of Amiga's strong points, for example, imaging and animation. Hans, you probably should understand the products on which you are commenting (Edge's products) before commenting. -- ///==\\ (No disclaimer - nobody's listening anyway.) /// Roger B.A. Klorese, CELERITY (Northeast Area) \\\ 40 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701 +1 617 872-1552 \\\==// celtics!roger@seismo.CSS.GOV - seismo!celtics!roger
rap@dana.UUCP (Rob Peck) (06/08/87)
In article <1569@celtics.UUCP>, roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes: > Clearly, Amiga's best > chances are in niches which contain innovators, and which can take > advantage of Amiga's strong points, for example, imaging and animation. > imaging and animation <squeeze ... munch ... scrunch> imagin..ation whew! Guess he may well be right. Rob Peck ...hplabs!dana!rap