doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (08/29/85)
> Point #1: Yes, Commodore has been outselling Atari. Yet, IBM has been out- > selling both. Why? IBM gains two audiences; the ones who know > what they want at the start and buy big, and those that outgrow both > the 800 and C64 (notoriously weak machines by any NONBIASED standard) Nonbiased?? The 800 and C64 are very strong machines, and the IBM PC very weak, for those of us who use our home computers for game playing. On the other hand, the PC clobbers the 800 and 64 for business applications. I don't have any figures here to back me up, but I believe that the PC only outsells the 64 in $$ figures, not in number of units. That's easy to do when it costs ten times as much. It's all a matter of perspective... > Point #2: Commodore slipped in the market last Christmas (and still is, by the > way) due to a serious fault in that company - they completely scrap > the old machine when a new one comes along. If that was the correct explanation, we would expect to see the other manufacturers profitting from sales to the "refugees". It didn't happen that way. Commodore slipped in the market last Christmas because the heyday of the home computer is over. As did *all* micro manufacturers. *Nobody* is getting rich off of micros any more. I don't think one can defend the (implied) charge that Commodore is far more likely to scrap an old machine when introducing a new one than other manufacturers. Of the micros available at the time the C64 was announced, very few are still supported, and the C64 is one of them (and the new C128 has a C64 compatibility mode). IBM had to issue an (almost unprecedented) denial that it was about to scrap the PC in favor of a "PC II". And the Apple folks make no bones about wanting to scrap the Apple ][ line, if they didn't need it in order to cover the huge losses being rung up by the Mac (and Lisa and Apple /// before it). Rapid obsolescence has so far been a standard characteristic of the micro market. It's really not fair to single out any one company. -- Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {seismo!noao,decvax!noao,ihnp4}!terak!doug
horton@fortune.UUCP (Randy Horton) (09/04/85)
. . . > >> Point #2: Commodore slipped in the market last Christmas (and still is, by the >> way) due to a serious fault in that company - they completely scrap >> the old machine when a new one comes along. . . . >I don't think one can defend the (implied) charge that Commodore is far >more likely to scrap an old machine when introducing a new one than >other manufacturers. Of the micros available at the time the C64 was >announced, very few are still supported, and the C64 is one of them (and >the new C128 has a C64 compatibility mode). > The VIC20 would run many (small) programs written for the old CBM line of computers. Then came the C64, which would run many of the programs written for both the CBM line and the VIC20. Now we have the C128, which will run many of the same programs, plus will run ALL programs written for the C64, in C64 mode. Many (most) of the peripherals first introduced with the VIC can be used with both the C64 and the C128 (like the modems, RS232 interface, disk drive, cassette, etc.). Obviously this is a manufacturer whose new products make it's old ones totally obsolete :-) -- +---------------------------------------------+ | allegra\ Randy Horton @ Fortune Systems | | cbosgd \ | | dual >!fortune!ranhome!randy | | ihnp4 / | | nsc / Clever disclaimer goes here | +---------------------------------------------+