tcamp@ecsvax.UUCP (Ted A. Campbell) (01/06/88)
I spoke to folks at Micropro just before Christmas and asked them if they had any estimate of the size of the CP/M market. They said they didn't, but I received a letter this past week from a Marketing Communications Manager at Micropro, and she stated that between August and November 1986 Micropro sold 17,000 upgrades to CP/M Wordstar. Estimates of the number of CP/M machines varies from one and a half to two million. Some of these are out of service, but others have been passed on. Any one out there have a suggestion as to how we might characterize the size of the CP/M software market? -- Ted A. Campbell | Duke Divinity School | Durham, NC 27706 | email: tcamp@ecsvax |
mjg@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael Gingell) (01/06/88)
In article <4393@ecsvax.UUCP>, tcamp@ecsvax.UUCP (Ted A. Campbell) writes: > > Any one out there have a suggestion as to how we might > characterize the size of the CP/M software market? Yes - Declining. Seriously though - I would have thought the total number of machines was much greater. Especiallly if you include all those that can run CP/M as a sideline - TRS80's for example - over 2 million of those alone. Apple softcards and I suppose someone somewhere is running CP/M on a PC. Mike Gingell ecsvax!mjg
bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) (01/09/88)
In article <4393@ecsvax.UUCP> tcamp@ecsvax.UUCP (Ted A. Campbell) writes: >I spoke to folks at Micropro just before Christmas and asked them if they >had any estimate of the size of the CP/M market. [...] between August and >November 1986 Micropro sold 17,000 upgrades to CP/M Wordstar. > >Estimates of the number of CP/M machines varies from one and a half to >two million. Some of these are out of service, but others have been >passed on. Any one out there have a suggestion as to how we might >characterize the size of the CP/M software market? I think, Ted, that this is your best bet (at least until sombody comes out with a package that *every* CP/M user will want :-). It's clear that the CP/M market is larger then 17000, but by how much I wouldn't know. One can't even assume there are only 17k WordStar users out there. There are many who, like me, never mailed in the licenses for their old WordStars and thus wouldn't have learned about 4.0 (I registered only to get the upgrade). I know 6 CP/M systems (mine, my mother's, father's, two friends', and my boss's [for sale]), but only two of us (my father and I) have bought W*4.0. One friend doesn't use (or like, Jon?) WordStar, and the other doesn't know (yet) about the upgrade. Based on my experience we could say there are about 50000 systems active. I don't think that's a very accurate estimate, maybe not even to order of magnitude. I'm not sure we'd do much better if we each listed all the systems we know (checking to avoid overlaps), and all the upgrades we know. (I would list only 5 known machines, because one friend is also on the net, but I would list two upgrades.) -- William Swan {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!sigma!bill