merlyn@intelob.biin.com (Randal L. Schwartz @ Stonehenge) (12/07/88)
Sig Hartmann attended the Portland (Oregon) Atari Club Christmas Party last nite. Here are some things that he said. Actually, officially, these are things he *didn't* say... since he also said "Don't quote me" after nearly every one... (caveat emptor) Also, I don't have my notes with me, so these are from memory. * How many STs? "about 1.1 to 1.2 million" ** Is that worldwide? "yes" ** What about in the US? "about 100 to 200 thousand" * "focus in '89 is delivery of STs to US, even at expense of Europe" * "DRAMs hurt us, but the situation is improving" ** So, the problem is over? "No, just improving" * What about advertising? "We will be advertising heavily in '89" * What about Mail-Order? "We will reintroduce mail-order, but our first concern is dealers, and we must ensure that mail-order houses will not undercut dealer prices." * The 68030 box? "Look for it in mid-89, but don't hold your breath. It will run UNIX V.3r1, with a TOS emulation mode." ** Existing ST programs will run on it? "Yes" * ADOS? "I have a copy with me" * The inflatable? (Laptop :-) "First quarter of '89, but don't hold your breath" * TOS 1.4? "beta has gone out, and we are fixing problems now. Don't hold your breath." * Transputer? "50 units have been shipped to developers in Europe." * Texas automated plant? "We will automate, but it makes no sense to automate offshore. Sam [Tramiel] is committed to building and buying US where possible. I can't say the current status of the Texas plant, but it is our intention to bring manufacturing up to speed in the US" * The 8-bit line? "We are very committed to supporting this. We are looking for developers, and will cut some good deals for distribution [he repeated this four or five times]." * Why the game machine? "It makes money. Quick, easy money." * Financial Status? "Federated hurt us. But we are doing very well. We are in the Fortune 500 now." * The PC-clone? "60% of our engineers hated it, but it looked like it could make some money for us. We are still considering introduction, possibly mid-89, but don't hold your breath. Our real marketplace advantage is price/performance, and if we can do it cheaply and underbid the competition, we will go ahead." * "We now have industry standard business software [referring to a 1-2-3 2.0 clone, a dbase 3 clone, and some wordprocessing clone]. Our advertising will focus on the business utility of the system". * EST? "Looking at it still. More colors, more resolution." ------ Also at the party... Supra showed off their 10 Meg floppy system, and talked about a 250Meg WARM Optical Drive (Write-and-Read-Many) coming Real Soon Now. (That's essentially a 250M removable floppy drive, media costs around $50.) Look for it at about $2000 cost. This is the same drive as used in the NeXT box. Good cake and chips too. Disclaimer: this is really from memory, and I take personal responsibility for misquoting Sig. I only paid attention to things that were important to me, and he said some other stuff. Mail me if you have specific questions that he might have answered. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 on contract to BiiN Technical Information Services (for now :-), in a former Intel building in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA. <merlyn@intelob.biin.com> or ...!tektronix!inteloa[!intelob]!merlyn SOME MAILERS REQUIRE <merlyn@intelob.intel.com> GRRRRR! Standard disclaimer: I *am* my employer!