FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET (09/10/87)
>The 1040 ST product may be sold only though authorized computer dealers who >provide full product support including in and out of warranty service. This >support is not available though mail order operations. ... >Our desire to support the legitimate dealer network must, at this time, take >precedence over other considerations. There is no room in the ST dealer >network for those who see mail order as a part of their marketing plan. ... >August J. Liguori >Vice President Operations >ATARI (US) CORP. I hope this is a joke, perhaps stuck in the mail since last April 1? If not it sounds like what my business law prof called "pulling the pin on the Chapter 11 grenade and clutching it firmly to the corporate chest." Perhaps Atari has a secret dealer network that I haven't heard of? When I visited various major cities down south, the only one that had Atari dealers in convenient locations (outside of California) was the Boulder/Denver area. Other cities, especially those on the east coast, had dealers stuck out in obscure suburbs 30 miles from the metro area. And when I went to the trouble to visit one, they didn't have much in stock. If Atari had a vast dealer network like IBM or Apple I could understand them being protective, but under the circumstances it looks like an extremely counterproductive move. As far as I know there is one authorized dealer in Alaska, in Anchorage... that's about 500 miles from here. I don't know if it is still true, but at one time we had the largest number of microcomputers per capita of any state (small population, high average income, long boring winters...). Most of our towns are too small to support ANY computer dealer, much less Atari, and they are very far apart. We do not travel several hundred miles to buy computers. We buy computers (and a lot of other things) by mail order. I think Atari should go exactly the opposite direction, even selling spare parts, diagnostic disks, etc in stores and mail order. Don't force dealers to have service departments, and encourage independent electronic repair places to do work on Ataris. For example, in this town there is enough demand for hardware and software to keep a store going (we've had one for a couple of years...they mail order their stock!), but not enough to justify having a service department, which is apparently required to be an "official" dealer. Local techs fix the minor problems...the only major work I've had on my ST (the original OS ROM installation + memory upgrade) was done in Anchorage. Basically what Atari's policy is doing is locking out official dealers from all but the largest markets. The failure rate is just too low to support a service department in smaller populations. If they shut down mail order, they will truly lock out the small town user. Obviously, Atari management needs to take a trip out of the Valley to see what the real world is like. They better find out soon... Don FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET
preston@felix.UUCP (Preston Bannister) (09/11/87)
>The 1040 ST product may be sold only though authorized computer dealers who >provide full product support including in and out of warranty service. This >support is not available though mail order operations. ... >Our desire to support the legitimate dealer network must, at this time, take >precedence over other considerations. There is no room in the ST dealer >network for those who see mail order as a part of their marketing plan. ... >August J. Liguori >Vice President Operations >ATARI (US) CORP. I've been to our local Atari dealers. I wasn't impressed. Supporting your 'legitimate dealer network' sounds like a good idea, until you realize that (a) there isn't all that many Atari dealers, and (b) a number of those dealers aren't really what I'd call an asset. I'm sure that there are some areas that are serviced by some good Atari dealers. This isn't one of them. The local telephone directory has several pages crammed with listing of computer dealers. In the same area there are only 3 dealers that I know of. All are hole-in-the-wall type shops where the expertise of the people running the shops is very limited. If I were a first time buyer, these places wouldn't inspire confidence in product. Atari could do better with mail order. -- ======================================== Preston L. Bannister USENET : ucbvax!trwrb!felix!preston BIX : plb CompuServe : 71350,3505 GEnie : p.bannister