kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/06/91)
In <c.s.a.hardware> jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes: >In <1991Apr2.235710.13984@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >>[ flames about commodore not having introduced new chip sets...] > > Stupid me, for responding to M. Barrett, but.... > A quick head-count around here reveals that software guys are >outnumbered by chippies, not even counting hardware guys like Dave. However, >no amount of torture will get out of me they work on... ;-) As usual, you >have absolutely no concept what you're talking about. Hate to say it, but that last sentence was a cheap shot. Gee, of _course_ he has no concept of what y'all are doing: you don't _tell_ anyone <g>. But is it fair to say "I can't tell ya", and then turn around and blast that same person for NOT knowing what you're doing? And besides, you can see messages every day on most Amiga nets/forums from lotsa owners who come up with wishes and flames over what will/won't be done to upgrade Amiga gfx... this is a hot topic. Sure, MB is an "approved" target for rebuttals, but _everybody_ is wondering. > Also, Sun (a relatively high-end (and thus high-overhead)) startup >would be expected to put more % into R&D. They have far bigger margins, and >your figures were as a percentage of total sales. Then repost R&D figures as a percentage of profits, or whatever it takes! Otherwise you're again just fighting his flames with smoke and mirrors. > As for Commodore, we understand quite well the issues involved, and >your comments do nothing more than act as catharsis for you (apparently, you >need a lot of catharsis) (and of course to annoy people reading them). > followups to .advocacy... Looks like this kind of cathersis works for both sides ;-). Mind you, I'm sympathetic to your situation. I've been in the same spot myself: under fire but unable to reveal what's being done (and the bad part is, the secrecy rarely has a decent reason to exist). The difference is that we always just took the flammage... it comes with the territory of secrets. I think that blasting MB is similar to the Scud attacks on Israel... it can only build up sympathy for the target. In any case, best wishes to the chippies! - kev <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr6.065959.5656@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >In <c.s.a.hardware> jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes: > >>In <1991Apr2.235710.13984@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >>>[ flames about commodore not having introduced new chip sets...] >> >> Stupid me, for responding to M. Barrett, but.... >> A quick head-count around here reveals that software guys are >>outnumbered by chippies, not even counting hardware guys like Dave. However, >>no amount of torture will get out of me they work on... ;-) As usual, you >>have absolutely no concept what you're talking about. > > Hate to say it, but that last sentence was a cheap shot. Gee, of _course_ > he has no concept of what y'all are doing: you don't _tell_ anyone <g>. > But is it fair to say "I can't tell ya", and then turn around and blast > that same person for NOT knowing what you're doing? Well, in this case you need to know the history of Marc Barrett's posting habits on the subject of Commodore's internal practices and policies. Marc has been pretty quite lately, so you might not understand why Randall reacted so strongly to his posting. In the past Marc has had a habit of continuously posting long stinging diatribes against all sorts of internal policies of Commodore about which he had/has no knowledge whatsoever. On some of his better days he launched seven or eight different polemics all on the same subject and full of similar disinformation. As a result there has developed a knee-jerk reflex against him in the Amiga groups. Sometimes the responses are out of proportion to the actual post from Marc that they are responding to. In these cases the responders are often responding not just to the posting itself, but to the whole series of postings from Marc that still linger in the backs of their minds. Whether Marc deserves this treatment is a question I cannot answer. But there is no doubt that he went to a great deal of effort to gain his reputation here. _. --Steve ._||__ DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own. Warren v\ *| ---------------------------------------------- V {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.com --
xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (04/10/91)
In article <1991Apr8.082156.2486@kberg.se>, svante@kberg.se (Svante Gellerstam) writes: >Everybody seems to think along the lines that it is Commodore that has >to do all new peripherals and all new inventions. This becomes a very >hard task for Commodore to do as more and more expensive technology >and know-how has imported into the company and researched from >scratch. I agree that Commodore should not be forced to take up the entire load of supporting the Amiga themselves. However, there is a big difference between doing too much and doing too little, and I believe that Commodore right now is doing too little. What will it take to satisfy me in this respect? I would be totally satisfied with Commodore if they raised their R&D investing so that it is on-par with the rest of the computer industry. I really shouldn't be satisfied with this, because Commodore really needs to invest more than the other companies in the industry, both to make up for years of under-investing and to rise above the mediocre average of what every other company invests. > >> Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj >> urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP , urjlew@unc.bitnet >> or urjlew@uncvm1.acs.unc.edu (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet) >> tel. (919)-962-6501 > >Please follow this up in the .advocacy group. > >-- >Svante Gellerstam svante@kberg.se, d87sg@efd.lth.se -MB- ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
jimmy@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jimmy Chan) (04/12/91)
In article <1991Apr9.171123.21360@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: > I agree that Commodore should not be forced to take up the entire >load of supporting the Amiga themselves. However, there is a big >difference between doing too much and doing too little, and I believe >that Commodore right now is doing too little. > > What will it take to satisfy me in this respect? I would be totally >satisfied with Commodore if they raised their R&D investing so that >it is on-par with the rest of the computer industry. I really >shouldn't be satisfied with this, because Commodore really needs to >invest more than the other companies in the industry, both to make >up for years of under-investing and to rise above the mediocre average >of what every other company invests. I really don't see the any proof or facts showing that C= is under-investing or even doing less than its computer competitors in the market. Given the fact from a few messages that C= doesn't pay dividends on it stock shares and puts it all back into the company seems to contradict what you have said. Gee, Marc why don't you list the actual figures that you are consulting to back up what you are saying, at least to give credence to your facts? I don't have knowledge of what is being spent by any of the computer makers on R&D so, I can't judge what you are saying to be true but giving your track record, it is quite possibly more erroneous information...AGAIN!! Actually, I would like to see a breakdown of each company's profit vs. R&D budgets and percentages...anyone have these figures? Also, the breakdown of the R&D budgets of the different areas that the money goes into, i.e. workstations, personal computers, graphics, etc.
xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (04/13/91)
In article <12431@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>, jimmy@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jimmy Chan) writes: >In article <1991Apr9.171123.21360@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >> I agree that Commodore should not be forced to take up the entire >>load of supporting the Amiga themselves. However, there is a big >>difference between doing too much and doing too little, and I believe >>that Commodore right now is doing too little. >> >> What will it take to satisfy me in this respect? I would be totally >>satisfied with Commodore if they raised their R&D investing so that >>it is on-par with the rest of the computer industry. I really >>shouldn't be satisfied with this, because Commodore really needs to >>invest more than the other companies in the industry, both to make >>up for years of under-investing and to rise above the mediocre average >>of what every other company invests. > >I really don't see the any proof or facts showing that C= is under-investing >or even doing less than its computer competitors in the market. Given the >fact from a few messages that C= doesn't pay dividends on it stock shares and >puts it all back into the company seems to contradict what you have said. >Gee, Marc why don't you list the actual figures that you are consulting to >back up what you are saying, at least to give credence to your facts? >I don't have knowledge of what is being spent by any of the computer makers >on R&D so, I can't judge what you are saying to be true but giving your >track record, it is quite possibly more erroneous information...AGAIN!! > >Actually, I would like to see a breakdown of each company's profit vs. R&D >budgets and percentages...anyone have these figures? Also, the breakdown >of the R&D budgets of the different areas that the money goes into, i.e. >workstations, personal computers, graphics, etc. Apparently, you did not see this message when I posted it in .hardware, so here it is again... Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Path: news.iastate.edu!VAXF.IASTATE.EDU!XGR39 From: xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) Subject: Re: Amiga Custom Chips - why hasn't C= made them faster? Message-ID: <1991Apr2.235710.13984@news.iastate.edu> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Reply-To: xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA. References: <CPETTERB.91Apr2105151@mickey.glacier.sim.es.com> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1991 23:57:10 GMT Lines: 122 In article <CPETTERB.91Apr2105151@mickey.glacier.sim.es.com>, cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com (Cary Petterborg) writes: >The Amiga has been out for years now. There have been improvements >made to the custom chips, Agnus in particular. But, I am amazed at >the fact that their clock speed, etc. has remained the same. In an >industry where last years chip runs twice as fast this year, C= sure >has sat back on their b*tts as far as performance is concerned. Is >it because they aren't willing to invest any more money into the >technology because they can sell so many A500's as they are now? >What gives? Certainly the technology exists to speed them up. Here is why Commodore has not improved the Amiga's custom chipset. The following table lists the amounts that Commodore has invested in R&D since 1984, both as a raw figure and as a percentage of total sales (the better figure for comparing companies): Commodore International, Ltd. ----------------------------------------------- Year | Total Sales | R&D | R&D as % of Sales | ----------------------------------------------- 1990 | 887.3 | 27.7 | 3.12 % | 1989 | 939.7 | 19.3 | 2.05 % | 1988 | 871.1 | 15.4 | 1.77 % | 1987 | 806.7 | 16.4 | 2.03 % | 1986 | 889.3 | 36.8 | 4.14 % | 1985 | 883.1 | 46.5 | 5.27 % | 1984 | 1267.2 | 40.3 | 3.18 % | ----------------------------------------------- However, looking at stats from a single company is not very useful. Therefore, let's look at the same figures for a *REAL* company, one whose management knows exactly what they are doing: Sun Microsystems ------------------------------------------------ Year | Total Sales | R&D | R&D as % of Sales | ------------------------------------------------ 1989 | 1765.366 | 234.1 | 13.26 % | 1988 | 1051.618 | 139.9 | 13.30 % | 1987 | 537.537 | 69.6 | 12.94 % | 1986 | 210.104 | 30.6 | 14.59 % | 1985 | 115.249 | 15.2 | 13.18 % | 1984 | 38.860 | 4.8 | 12.38 % | ------------------------------------------------ As you can see, compared to SUN, Commodore has never invested much in their own future, which is the reason why the custom chipset is so ancient, and why improvements are nowhere in sight. This information also gives us some insight into the success of the two companies. As you can see from the first table, between 1984 and 1990, Commodore's total sales steadily declined. The decline is actually much worse than it appears, once you take inflation into account. A look at Sun, however, shows a different story. This company is run by management that is totally committed to the R&D process, and it shows, both from their R&D investments and their corporate growth. Between 1984 and 1989, Sun grew at a very impressive rate of 200% per year. This is very good for a company that was only founded in 1983. The results are very apparent. Sun controls a very respectable percentage of the worldwide workstation market, and there are actually more active readers of the comp.sys.amiga newsgroups who work for Sun than who work for Commodore. BTW, there is more to these R&D figures than just development of future chipsets. The R&D budgets given in these tables are the total R&D investments, including both software and hardware R&D. If you look around at what Commodore has been doing lately, you can easily see that Commodore seems to be putting more priority into software projects (especially AmigaDOS and UNIX) than into development of future hardware. This lowers the amounts that Commodore has actually been spending on development of the chipset. If software R&D only accounts for 50% of Commodore's total R&D budget (a conservative figure, since I think it accounts for more), and 'other hardware projects' account for 50% of Commodore's hardware R&D budget, then this leaves only a tiny portion of an already-tiny R&D budget for devlopment of that chipset. It is no wonder why that improved chipset is so very long-delayed. This also explains more than just why the heart of the Amiga's hardware is so old and frail. It also explains why more than six years have gone by between when the Amiga's original O.S. was finished and a truly significant update was available. It also explains many significant features -- including virtual memory, memory protection, resource tracking, and device-independent video -- are still absent from the Amiga's O.S. I sill maintain that there are no valid reasons why that 32-bit 'Super ChipSet' should not be available right now. Sun started devlopment of their first RISC microprocessors in 1984, and was shipping complete systems based on these microprocessors in 1987. Sun was still a very small company during these years, and yet they were able to develop the SPARC microprocessor completely from scratch and ship complete systems based on the SPARC in less than four years. By comparison, with the 'Super ChipSet' Commodore has it made. Commodore is still a much bigger company now than Sun was at that time, and Commodore is not designing from scratch but is merely improving an existing design. Despite this, more than five years have gone by since the original chipset was finished and significant improvements are still 2-3 years away. Short Bibliography: The tables containing the R&D and Total Sales information for Sun and Commodore came from the Moodies OTC and Moodies International volumes, respectively. The information about the development of the Sun SPARC microprocessor came from The Sun Technical Journal, in a paper called 'The SPARC Papers'. Check this information for yourself if you wish to verify this information. > >Cary > >PS. Sorry if this has already been discussed much. I just got back to >reading this and other Amiga newsgroups. >-- >_______________ >Cary Petterborg (801)582-5847 x6446 >Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. Simulation Division SLC, UT 84108 >UUCP: ...!uunet!sim.es.com!cpetterb *NET: cpetterb@glacier.sim.es.com -MB- ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ---------------------------------------------------------- -MB- ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (04/13/91)
Marc,
One thing your table doesn't take into account is PROFITS. Sure, I
could have a company that sells $500 million in computers a year, but
only makes 10 million profit to invest back into the company. Remember,
a year or two ago, Commodore was running almost a non-profit company.
(I recall, one quarter they only back 7 million profit). Why don't you
research R&D as a percentage of total profiT?
I bet both Apple and AT&T have very high R&D %'s because they
have very large profit margins.
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | // The opinions expressed here do not in any way |
| uunet!tnc!m0023 | \X/ reflect the views of my self. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/16/91)
In article <1991Apr12.175631.3173@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: [ bunch of useless figures ] Looks like you included the inital R&D for the Amiga, and left that out for the Sun. Plus, I believe the margin on a Sun is a bit higher than for an Amiga. How about listing R&D as % of net, or something at least *vaguely* rational? > As you can see, compared to SUN, Commodore has never invested much > in their own future, Too busy staving off bankruptcy. The fact that they continued *ANY* R&D in that period is pretty impressive. > you can see from the first table, between 1984 and 1990, Commodore's > total sales steadily declined. Had nothing to do with the slow death of the C=64 in the face of cheap PCs and Nintendos, the effort of staving off Tramiell's lawsuit, and so on. That was just a sideshow, right? > A look at Sun, however, shows a different story. This company is In the same position with Workstations as Apple is in GUI-based PCs: they're the first on the market, and never had a major financial problem because they could always trade on their name. > Commodore is still a much bigger company now than Sun was at that > time Commodore was also bleeding red ink from every pore. Yes, they could have done better: but it's not the self-inflicted injury you keep claiming. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr16.015953.22600@sugar.hackercorp.com>, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <1991Apr12.175631.3173@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >[ bunch of useless figures ] > >Looks like you included the inital R&D for the Amiga, and left that out for >the Sun. Plus, I believe the margin on a Sun is a bit higher than for an >Amiga. How about listing R&D as % of net, or something at least *vaguely* >rational? I *DID* list R&D as a percentage of net sales. Just look at the tables again. The second column list the Net Sales of both companies, which I called Total Sales (exactly the same thing), and the fourth column lists the R&D investments of both companies as a percentage of Total Sales or Net Sales, which I abbreviated to 'Sales'. I have included the tables again, in a slightly edited fashion for people like you who cannot recognize synonyms in economics terms. Commodore International, Ltd. ------------------------------------------------------------- Year | Total Net Sales | R&D | R&D as % of Total Net Sales | ------------------------------------------------------------- 1990 | 887.3 | 27.7 | 3.12 % | 1989 | 939.7 | 19.3 | 2.05 % | 1988 | 871.1 | 15.4 | 1.77 % | 1987 | 806.7 | 16.4 | 2.03 % | 1986 | 889.3 | 36.8 | 4.14 % | 1985 | 883.1 | 46.5 | 5.27 % | 1984 | 1267.2 | 40.3 | 3.18 % | ------------------------------------------------------------- Sun Microsystems -------------------------------------------------------------- Year | Total Net Sales | R&D | R&D as % of Total Net Sales | -------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 | 1765.366 | 234.1 | 13.26 % | 1988 | 1051.618 | 139.9 | 13.30 % | 1987 | 537.537 | 69.6 | 12.94 % | 1986 | 210.104 | 30.6 | 14.59 % | 1985 | 115.249 | 15.2 | 13.18 % | 1984 | 38.860 | 4.8 | 12.38 % | -------------------------------------------------------------- >-- >Peter da Silva. `-_-' ><peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>. ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/17/91)
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >Commodore was also bleeding red ink from every pore. Yes, they could have done >better: but it's not the self-inflicted injury you keep claiming. Or as George Bush would say, "that red ink thing" ;-). Been around a while. "Q: C= has been rapped for low R&D (5% of sales). Any feel for how flexible their definition of R&D is?" "A: I haven't met the new management yet (changes monthly?), but knowing the Board, I doubt they have or ever will reach 5%. They are still not out of the woods financially and will have to keep R&D low." (from a mid-1989 conference with Jay Miner)
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.073837.2647@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: > In article <1991Apr16.015953.22600@sugar.hackercorp.com>, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > >In article <1991Apr12.175631.3173@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: > >[ bunch of useless figures ] > >Looks like you included the inital R&D for the Amiga, and left that out for > >the Sun. Plus, I believe the margin on a Sun is a bit higher than for an > >Amiga. How about listing R&D as % of net, or something at least *vaguely* > >rational? > I *DID* list R&D as a percentage of net sales. How about net profits? (net sales, what a concept. net sales == total sales == gross sales == ...) The last time someone used the meaningless term "net sales" on me, it was a software publisher trying to con me out of royalties. I can only assume your motives are similar. > I have included the tables again, in a slightly edited fashion for > people like you who cannot recognize synonyms in economics terms. How about including them again, with some better data for people like me who recognise waffling when they see it? -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.