marksv%t1d@uk.ac.man.cs (02/15/91)
In article <2776@krafla.rhi.hi.is> kvj@rhi.hi.is (Kristjan Valur Jonsson) writes: >But is seems that the problem stems from Acorn >themselves. How utterly ridiculous. Those who own Arcs here are usually >old BBC hackers who understood the merit of the BBC micro and upgraded when >the Arc came along. Nothing has been done recruit new users, so only a few >chosen souls know about the Arc. If it is Acorn's policy to concentrate on >the BBC (micro) established markets then I they must be very narrow minded. >It namely concerns the user very much whether his machine is commonly owned >or at least commonly known about or not. Acorn surey has a lot to catch up >with on the PR side of matters. How very sad, but true. I am continually amazed at how a company can manufacture such excellent, first rate hardware, and still not sell it! What marketing strategy exists is frankly not effective. The educational market was already captured, and the decision to maintain backwards compatability with the BBC was (in *my* opinion) a bad decision. BBC users were well catered for with a good BBC Emulator. I think Acorn should have started from scratch with the Arc, surely even the "technophobic teachers" can cope with a few new OS Concepts every decade or so :-). I think Arc should have taken on the likes of the Am*ga, ST etc in the leisure market *and won*. It didn't, and personally, I think the overall software support for the Arc is appaling! A small buch of companies with a vested interest or a few old BBC Hacks' is not what the Arc deserves. I feel that the 540 is a serious (UN*X) "Workstation" market contender but I doubt it will ever sell to any great degree, due to Acorns complete lack of credibility in the business market. People will continue to buy inferior equipment at inflated prices until Acorn marketing is vastly improved (along with some software support). Acorn marketing division: "A bunch of mindless jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came" - Douglas Adams (Paraphrased :-) ______________________________________________________________ / __ __ __ __ ___________________________ / / /__/ / / / /__/ /__/ / / / Vaughan Marks / / / / / / / / __ / / / / / / / Secretary SSCC / /__/ / / /__/ /__/ / / / / / / / marksv@uk.ac.man.cs.p4 / ________________________________/ /__________________________/
mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) (02/18/91)
marksv%t1d@uk.ac.man.cs writes: > I think Arc should have taken on the likes of the Am*ga, ST etc in the > leisure market *and won*. There are a number of reasons why it didn't. (1) I suspect that Acorn did not (and do not) have the manufacturing capability to make that many machines. Atari have huge factories in the far east churning out STs, and they _still_ sell out from time to time. (2) The ST and Amiga had a head start of about a year. (3) The Archimedes has no US following. Until companies like Electronic Arts start producing Archimedes games, the machine is not going to win against the ST or Amiga. (4) The Archimedes was, and still is, too bloody expensive. I was quite excited when the A3000 came out; I thought Acorn had finally done something right. I thought I'd be able to justify getting an Archimedes. Then I looked at the specifications, and it seemed that Acorn had produced much the same sort of crippled hardware disaster as the old BBC "A" computer. My opinion is that the Archimedes will not begin compete with the ST or Amiga until you can buy a fully-functional, upgradable Archimedes for 600. By "upgradable" I mean that the machine must have RS423, parallel port, SCSI connector (or equivalent) for hard disk, slots for SIMMs, and ideally MIDI ports as well. It must be capable of accepting any add-on which a more expensive Arc can accept. You can do what Apple do, and cut down on the number of expansion slots; but you must allow for expansion. mathew.
altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) (02/22/91)
You'll probably all be pleased to know that the archimedes a3000 was the 4th best selling computer in UK in 1990: Amiga 500 : 187,000 Atari ST : 84,000 PS2 55SX : 55,000 (I think, can't remember) A3000 : 41,000 Total archimedes' sold (according to acorn) is about 75% of acorn machines sold, and they say they shipped almost 100,000 computers last year, about 12,000 of which were masters. Draw your own conclusions! BTW, the figures above for best selling computers are from industry source, not acorn. Hugo -- Hugo Fiennes --------------------------------------------------------------- -- "HAL, you're not IBM compatible..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <-- tharr *free* public access to Usenet in the UK 0234 261804 -->
mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) (02/25/91)
altman@tharr.UUCP (Hugo Fiennes) writes: > You'll probably all be pleased to know that the archimedes a3000 was the 4th > best selling computer in UK in 1990: > > Amiga 500 : 187,000 > Atari ST : 84,000 > PS2 55SX : 55,000 (I think, can't remember) > A3000 : 41,000 > > [...] Draw your own conclusions! BTW, the figures > above for best selling computers are from industry source, not acorn. Which "industry source"? The Amiga vs. ST figures look _very_ suspicious; I find it hard to believe that the trend should have reversed so spectacularly since last year. It's also a little odd to see the A3000 outselling the C64, Spectrum, and Amstrad. Care to tell us a little more? mathew.