From: FRACYON@dirac.physics.jmu.edu (Ali Fracyon)
Subject: Re: Atari seen in Compuke! Magazine
Organization: JMU Physics Dept.
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 01:40:32 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In <Dec12.003959.39533@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> millerm@CS.ColoState.EDU writes:

> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
> 
> >To add to the discussion of magazines with Mark Miller..
> > 
> >Unfortunately, what drives magazines is not the popularity of
> >a computer's "market share", but the percentage of advertising
> >they can sell to a particular computer's suppliers..
> > 
> >Subscriptions alone don't pay for a very large part of the
> >expenses in running a magazine.. it's the advertising pages that
> >make or break a publication..   and if an advertising manager
> >calls up companys and is told "We no longer support the Atari
> >platform, please pull our ad", then the editorial departments
> >can hardly continue to print material for a platform which no
> >longer pays the bills...
>  
> Okay, that makes sense.  I did not realize that before.  I thought
> magazine subscriptions did in fact pay a large part of the bills.
> What puzzles me though is that example I cited with TI.  I am not
> exaggerating when I say Compute! supported the TI-99/4A for about TWO
> YEARS after TI stopped making them!  I don't THINK there was a lot of
> advertising supporting TI's either after TI discontinued it.  I don't
> know, I could be wrong.  I haven't looked at those old issues in a
> while.  After reading one of the other messages on here about Borland
> stopping support for the Mac, I've gotten another impression of the
> computer industry.  From what I've heard in the past, the Mac has
> something like a 10% market share in the U.S.  It may have grown since
> then.  I don't think it's dropped, because I heard that once they
> brought their low-end computers down to around the $1000 range they
> couldn't make enough of them for the demand.  Perhaps in the "old
> days" the computer industry was more forgiving and sympathetic to
> minority brands, and were willing to hold out for them because it
> didn't cost them much to do so.  What I don't understand is how come
> Compute! stopped covering the Mac?  I can understand why it stopped
> covering the Amiga, if they consider popularity below a certain margin

Actually, they still have an Amiga section and a C64/128 section.  They
stopped advertising that they have 'special' editions for other computers
when OMNI/PH took charge and I believe the reason that the other computers
lost their coverage is because it looked like a 100% IBM magazine so
only IBM people bought it.  The reason that the Amiga/Commodore sections
were left was probably because there were enough subscribers to justify
their keeping.  One odd note thou, they are charging less than $10 for
any edition / multi-edition of their magazine (12 issue subscription).  
At first, I thoungh they are going to have these special editions until
the subscriptions run out, but since they are advertising their special
sections and purchasing programs for disk on the Amiga and type-ins for
the C64/128, maybe they are in for the long run.  Maybe they see a profit
in having special sections.  You should contact them; with there being
alot less Commodore, Amiga, and Atari magazines around, maybe their
support of these computers would be profitable to them.

> (which is higher than it used to be), but why the hell did they drop
> Mac support???  Isn't the Mac popular enough, even in products that
> could be sold through Compute! in advertising, that it would warrant
> devoting a part of the magazine to it?  Also, isn't the Mac popular
> enough that there would be a demand for Borland's products?  Or was
> there a competing product in the Mac market that was better?  Some
> have said the same recently of WordPerfect.  The reason WordPerfect
> had to stop supporting the Atari is not only because of lower
> popularity over time of the computers, but because other word
> processors had come out that competed with it, and Atari users
> preferred them to WordPerfect.
> 
> To sum it up, it seemed to me Compute! had changed its priorities
> and is no longer the kind of magazine it used to be, in the spirit
> that it used to be.  I remember, they used to pride themselves
> on the fact that they were one of the few magazines covering all
> different kinds of computers, so no matter which one you owned you
> could get something out of the magazine.  Today I don't think this is
> really true.  They still have general articles I'm sure, but just
> about everything else is PC-only.  I was suspicious that the reason
> the priorities were changed was that management had been changed.  The
> new management came in, decided they didn't like Compute's philosophy,
> or didn't understand it, and decided to change it.  Unfortunately I
> don't think they understood the spirit of the older magazine, much
> less the philosophy.  I think they have turned it into a PC-only
> magazine, rather than what it was intended to be, a magazine that most
> computer users could enjoy and get something out of it.  Maybe they
> made the right decision to make the change.  I just suspect that they
> made some unnecessary changes, that it wouldn't have hurt them to keep
> some things that they have elliminated, like support for the Mac.
> 
> One may wonder why I am advocating that Compute! support the Mac.  I
> am not advocating it per se.  I am an Atari user.  It just strikes me
> as very odd that Compute! doesn't at least support the Mac in addition
> to the PC.  I think it was unnecessary to take Mac support out.
> Either it was management, or else the readers decided it.  Maybe Mac
> users didn't like Compute! in the first place.  I just find the
> lacking support odd, because it has not happened before.
> 
> >(I've actually sat with the "advertising manager" of an Atari
> >specific publication and heard those same kinds of comments from
> >her advertisers..  It's a pretty discouraging experience..)
>  
> Yeah, must be depressing.
> 
> >It might be that after having so many other platforms pulled out
> >from under them (Radio Shack, Texas Instruments, ADAM, Sinclair,
> >etc..) when the Atari 8bit market started to collapse, the
> >publishers of Compute! decided not to wait until the bitter end
> >to drop their coverage..  the Atari market had hung on by its
> >fingernails much longer than any of those others..
>  
> Well it would seem they dropped support for the ST a little earlier
> than "usual" also.  I think they dropped the ST mag. a year or two
> after they dropped Atari 8-bit support.  One of the things that
> might've been an indication of lack of support for some of the
> other computers, as well as type-in programs in general is some of
> their computer-specific publications went bi-monthly almost from the
> beginning.
> 
> >Like any other businessman, a publisher has to go where his
> >customers are, and give them what they want to buy, if he wants
> >to stay in business.  Just call the rolls of all the now
> >defunct Atari publications to see how true that is...
> 
> I couldn't agree with you more.  One of the other things that Compute!
> used to pride itself on is it acted as kind of a bridge between
> computer users.  Remember, I said one of the reasons I liked Compute!
> was because it showed me the strengths and weaknesses of each make of
> computer.  I remember Arlan Levitan writing a sarcastic column about
> other magazines always supporting the make of computer they were
> supporting and downgrading all other makes like they were the scum of
> the earth, or making fun of them.  He also wrote about how silly it was
> that computer users of one make were downgrading other makes of
> computer.  He then went on to say, basically, "Alright!  Just
> to show how stupid it is, I'm going to downgrade every make of
> computer there is!!" and proceeded to do so, focusing only on the
> weaknesses of each brand/type.  The point he was making, and some
> other columnists of Compute! had made in the past is Compute! was
> a magazine where this kind of stuff didn't happen, where all brands of
> computer were considered equal in merit based on what they could do,
> rather than what other computers couldn't do.
> 
> What I see happening with Compute! becoming another PC-only magazine
> is that bridge is lost.  It would seem the computer industry has gone
> back to the days where there were no general computer magazines, just
> computer-specific ones, and each segment of computer users (using
> their brand) were naive about what was going on with other brands,
> because computer-specific publications don't cover other brands, or if
> they do they cover them in a negative way.  The only general computer
> magazines that I can think of now are Byte and Computer Shopper.  I
> consider Byte to be a business-person's magazine, not a personal
> computer user's mag.  Maybe Computer Shopper is the only one left in
> this area?

Damn PCs are everywhere.  Modern electronics changed their format and
claimed that it was going to have CPU projects (build around 6502, ...)
but starting with their second issue, they have been having articles
on how to stick a harddrive in a PC or articles on different brands
of 387 math coprocessors that are available.

I don't think that it matters if Atari has been rulling the computer
composition market or if multimedia is better on the Amiga, if there are
thousands of PC users going around asking about which sound board they 
should buy or which MPC package is the best, they are going to get all
the attention.

-My views only; not MDI's; not JMU's.  -Congratulations Finland. 75 years!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ali Fracyon                                      -    -    -        - - -
Modular Dreams, Inc.               // Only      -   -   -        -  -  -
P.O. Box 486                     \X/ Amiga!    -  -  -        -   -   -
Harrisonburg, VA 22801                        - - -        -    -    -
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> 
> |Mark Miller, computer science   |"The most important human endeavor is the  |
> |major at C.S.U.                 |striving for morality in our actions.  Our |
> |millerm@cs.colostate.edu        |inner balance and even our very existence  |
> |mmiller@nyx.cs.du.edu           |depend on it.  Only morality in our        |
> |   /    Atari friend! |||       |actions can give beauty and dignity to     |
> | \/ --- The Mark      )|(       |life." --- Albert Einstein                 |
> |        World Peace  / | \  There's nothing else quite like it.             |
>