From: cuadrasola@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Commodore and the Osborne Syndrome
Date: 26 Jul 92 23:46:52 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <50888@dime.cs.umass.edu>, barrett@snoopy.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
> In article <1992Jul25.134910.41871@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> cuadrasola@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>One of the things that I (and many other people) dislike of Commodore is
>>that they never release any news on the kind of products they are working on
>>and plan to release in the near future.
> 
> 	Personally, I'm glad Commodore keeps it quiet.  Here is a perfect
> example of why it's good:  the stupid EMPLANT flames in
> comp.sys.amiga.emulations.
> 
> 	One of the developers there made the mistake of "pre-announcing" his
> product in public.  This started lots of speculation about it.  The 
> speculation turned to rumors.  The rumors turned to anger.  The angry
> people said "why isn't it out yet?!?"  The developer said "it will be
> out on such-and-such a date."  One month before that date, people started
> flaming that "it better be out or else I'm going to [fill in the blank]!!"
> Other people responded and said "why don't you just wait and see?!?  It's
> not out yet!"  Then others said "it will never come out!"  People called
> it vaporware EVEN BEFORE THE SUPPOSED RELEASE DATE.
> 
> 	The release date came and went with no product coming out.
> The flamers said "See?  I told you!"  The developer said "we are just
> waiting for FCC approval -- the product is done."  People shouted "Why
> haven't there been any magazine reviews yet?!?"  More people yelled,
> and others got angry, etc etc etc etc etc.
> 
> 	And you think .advocacy is bad.  1/2 :-)
> 
>                                                         Dan
> 
>  //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
> | Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center |
> | University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA  01003  --  barrett@cs.umass.edu |
>  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////


What is wrong about letting people talk and speculate.  I think that all these
discussions about Emplant have given so much publicity to the product that 
everybody is more exited about it than about any other product that can be
expected from Commodore.

I don't think people will mind the wait as long as they know what to expect.
Apple released system 7 a year after they first said it would ship.  IBM kept
delaying the release date of OS/2.  People talked.  I still remember the
rumors about OS/2 never becoming a real product as IBM just could not keep up
with the rate at which the project was sucking millions of dollars.  At least
these two companies did not deny that they had something cooking while
Commodore denies that there is such a thing as OS 2.1.  Why? Both OS/2 and
system 7 are extremely succesful products.  Why does Commodore think that OS
2.1 would not sell if they release some oficial comments about it?  Why does't
Commodore want to keep its customers exited?  Why are they actually taking
away from us the exitement that we natually inherit when we, amiga users, 
experience the wonderful things the Amiga can do every day?

Maybe I am stupid but I just don't get it.

-- 
Juan 

+--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
|                                      |   IBM/MAC        //                |
| Juan P. Cuadra-Sola                  |   ~~~~~~~       //                 |
| cuadrasola@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu        |  ( *   * )   \\//  Amiga (3000)    |
| Electrical and Computer Engineering  |   |  ^  |     \/   forever.        |
| University of Kansas                 |    \ = /  --+                      |
| Lawrence, KS. 66045                  |     \_/     +--> "I'm just a       |
|                                      |                   cave man..."     |
+--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy