K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET (04/01/88)
In article <9277@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> weaver@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Weaver) writes: [A lot of correct stuff and then] >However, the problem lies not with the computer but with its manufacturer, >in my opinion. The ST doesn't appear to have much of a future in the United >States. The ST is doing extremely well in Europe, and Atari is pumping >the bucks, and more importantly the support over there instead of here, I wonder who ever started this rumour, Atari has never offered ANY support besides normal guarantee work for it's customers in German speaking Europe (the UK is reportedly better, they even have a developers newsletter) and I haven't seen any signs of it changing yet. But even if the rumour was true, it would just be good business sense to spend some money on the support of the people that provide the biggest income. And in the end, US customers will profit aswell, who do you think is paying for the support Atari gives it's US customers now, who do think finances things like the $95 board swap? One main problem with current Atari politics is that they are continously annoucing (and perhaps even developing) machines that are completly mis- placed for any kind of target market Atari could have a non-zero share of: both the Abaq and the 030 machine are just three to four times too expensive for the average current Atari buyer, in fact they are more expensive than what we pay now for a low-end Sun or Apollo machine, so no chance of getting in the Academic market either*. What Atari should really be concentrating on is: providing the current ST users with resonable system software (it's really a joke that you have to buy an Atari PC to get a recent GEM version with bundled software), at least making the current improvements (Blitter-TOS) avaiable straight- away to all users, and then in 2 to 3 months provide a new ROM release with all known bugs fixed (and don't say it can't be done, naturally it can be done, it's just a question of wanting to do so) BEFORE they start adding new features. On the hardware side they should get a Mega-ST version with something like the quality of the Atari-PC (EGA) graphics out plus 68010 and MMU, this is something they could build for the same price as the current machines (which is the price range Atari should try to build for). So I hope this has been constructive enough for once..... :-) Simon Poole UUCP: ...mcvax!cernvax!forty2!poole Bitnet: K538915@CZHRZU1A * BTW I said more or less the same thing a year ago.....