From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
Subject: Re: Advertising Campaign
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:40:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.032958.9161@wam.umd.edu> davereed@wam.umd.edu (Michael Robert Bromery) writes:
>   Well, while a good representative from Commodore is here, I would like
>to ask a question that I only want John Campbell to answer, please.
>   The good news is that I'm starting to see a lot of new things for Amiga
>come out recently. It seems like the magazines, mainly Amiga ones, are 
>beginning to have more and more things to talk about. I was wondering how
>the U.S. advertising campaign is comming along. I haven't seen any 
>commercializing done for years. The wierd part is that I see loads of 
>potential to hold an even tighter grip on the U.S. market by turning people's
>heads to see a new commercial. I understand that preparations on this stuff
>takes time, and see a reason to want to wait for significant AGA titles to
>be released first before telling the world about it. 
>    It seems more and more that the reason more U.S. citizens don't have the
>machine is that they don't know about it. I got my machine from word of
>mouth and just decided to try out his amiga for a while to see what it was
>like. I can say I was kind of lucky, for Maryland maybe one of the states
>with the fewest amiga owners in it. Apparently, other cities in Maryland
>seem to have more fellow owners. It was just that the major cities I was
>in didn't have many. 
>    Operating systems under 2.0 and up seem to feel much more professional
>than the 1.x rom machines and now, only 2.0 and up is being sold. I'd figure
>the AGA machines and A4000s would sell more here than anywhere else because
>of the demand. People here don't hardly want a system without a harddrive.
>People here would increase the AGA-HD market so high that the software
>designers will be very interested in coding more and more with support for
>those systems. 

   There is one big thing that is holding the Amiga back from being a 
success, and that is the available software.  As Apple has shown, people
are more than willing to pay more for a slower, inferior system if the
system looks good, is easy-to-use, and can do what they want it to do (read:
run the software they want to run).  The Amiga still does not have adequate
software, which is why I have been advocating the development of a 'works'
package for the Amiga that would contain the most important productivity 
programs in one package, included with some Amiga systems.

   Commodore has put lots of effort into maintaining the Amiga's market 
share in the multimedia and video markets, but these markets are small at
best.  I feel strongly that the potential increase in sales from the 
development of a good bundled works package could be many times larger than
even the best possible increase in sales that Commodore could get from
something like AmigaVision Pro.  The Amiga is currently trapped, if you 
will, in the multimedia and video markets, and a mainstream works package
might allow them to break out of it.

   As for how this packaged could be developed, I think a port to the Amiga
(with enhancements) of Berkeley Softworks' GeoWorks package would do nicely.
This company has worked with Commodore before, and might be pursuaded to 
work with Commodore again, if they could be convinced that they could make
money on it.  The people at Berkeley Softworks are also not as tied into the
IBM clone mentality, and now how to develop software that multitasks well,
so I think they could do the port nicely.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------
"I suppose if I had two X chromosomes, I'd feel hostile too."
                              - Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes)