UUCJEFF@ECNCDC.BITNET (05/06/88)
For all of you who have been ragging at Atari for its poor support, it is always the same reason, namely the Tramells. Have it ever occured to you that the reason it may not be as good as Apple or others is because that the price of the Atari stuff is too low to provide enough revenues to pay for the kind of support that you want? Remember, this is America, and no one gets away without paying. To qualify this, let's look at some of the big companies. In my professional experience, I have found DEC support to be the best. However, with what we pay in 1 year for this support, we could buy 10 1040 STs. As for IBM, they are a real pain. I once called them to arrange repair of some mainframe terminals, and when I gave them the serial numbers, they said Amoco owned them and insisted I was crazy for saying otherwise. And IBM will always try to sell you a machine that just barely meets your requirements, push a bunch of hoggy software on you, so you need to upgrade in 6 months. If you want support to be as good as some others, would you be willing to pay what you do to the others? Now just for the record, I have phoned Atari for some technical support, and of coursethe person wasnt in, and of course they said they'd call back, and of course they didnt. But other times I have gotten through, and they have answered my questions. And that isn't different than most other companies I have dealt with. Lately I have been trying to get through to Fairlight with with the same result, and here is the Mercedes of the electronic musical instruments manufactures. I am happy with my ST, iuntil I win the lottery it is the best for musical applications. With the Hybrid Arts stuff, I will be able to make CD quality masters at 1/10 the cost of synclavier, and that is cool. Jeff Beer, UUCJEFF@ECNCDC
david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) (05/10/88)
In article <8805061426.AA20860@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> UUCJEFF@ECNCDC.BITNET writes: >For all of you who have been ragging at Atari for its poor support, it is >always the same reason, namely the Tramells. Have it ever occured to you >that the reason it may not be as good as Apple or others is because that >the price of the Atari stuff is too low to provide enough revenues to >pay for the kind of support that you want? ... Have you checked out the profits reported by Atari Corp? And take a look at how much cash they have too. They are making a bundle! Money, at least the lack of it, is not the reason that Atari doesn't support the ST. To clear up another point, when I'm talking about "support", I don't mean just answering the telephone and such. I'm talking about a lot more than that. Trying to call IBM or Apple or Microsoft is often a major waste of time. I'm not complaining (too much) about that. When I talk about "support", I mean overall support, in terms of marketing, development, documentation, dealer support, developer support, and software maintenance, among other things. The biggest "support" is to have one helluva lot of systems out there - like 10 million as a starting point. To get that many systems sold, you have to do the things I call "support" right first. The point is that to me "support" means total support, not just the usual meaning of tech. support. Tech. support is just one aspect of "support". -- David Beckemeyer | "To understand ranch lingo all yuh Beckemeyer Development Tools | have to do is to know in advance what 478 Santa Clara Ave, Oakland, CA 94610 | the other feller means an' then pay UUCP: ...!ihnp4!hoptoad!bdt!david | no attention to what he says"