From: nwickham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Neal Wickham)
Subject: Utilities Unlimited vs NewTek's cottage industry paradigm
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 10:29:52 GMT


How is that some of the brightest people you know can also be
some of most ridiculous?  I am afraid that I am going to be
frustrated with Utilities Unlimited the way I am with NewTek.  I
will never forget the heavy conversation I had one afternoon with
one of the NewTek originals (I promised not to use his name on
the net).  Some of the things he told me I still find
disheartening and difficult to accept.  There is no reason why
NewTek and even Amiga couldn't be household names by now.  NewTek
could be synonymous with camcorders, DTV, and home video where
NewTek was the brand name for an entire family of
computer/video/DTV products.  This would be good for me, good for
NewTek, for Amiga, the domestic economy, and for anyone who
enjoys computers or electronics.  NewTek could have created
standards and opened new markets for everything from a simple and
inexpensive Toaster Jr. to a Mega Video Station with all the
latest NewTek accessories.  What we have instead is ...the
Toaster, ...and then a hundred other incompatible video/graphic
products of various flavors and costs.  I have the idea that
NewTek is pretty much what it was several years ago and can't
grow or change.  They are wrapped up into some original paradigm
and are simply unable to punch their way free.

In our conversation, this NewTek person said that everyone asks:
"Why doesn't NewTek grow?"  But then said in a perturbed tone: 
"...we can't find creative people.  Creative people are hard to
come by.  You just can't find creative people these days..." 
which impressed me with him and NewTek at the time.  But folks,
these guys at Utilities Unlimited are living proof that creative
people are out there.  What I really think the problem is is that
NewTek is your basic rat-pack of old-time-computer-hacks locked
into their cottage-computer-industry paradigm.  They didn't LOOK
for creative people.  They couldn't imagine themselves being
anything more than a relatively small rat-pack of old-time-
computer-hacks!  Even with millions of dollars flowing in, NewTek
is still basically the same old gang dicking around with the same
old hack.  This guy said, for instance, that the idea of a
Toaster Jr. was floated around for awhile at NewTek but it got
put on a back burner and then forgotten.  He didn't really know
what happened to it.  Well I can guess what happened.  The idea
was involving too much new sophistication and was simply
incompatible with their cottage-computer-industry paradigm. 

These guys at Utilities Unlimited are starting to worry me now. 
Here they have this great idea... this Emplant board which stands
to be the greatest product for Amiga since the Toaster.  It
emulates a color Mac and a 386/486 all on one board and is
supposed to sell for about $300 without a 386/486.  But what kind
of paradigms might these guys have? ...maybe the late-night-
hacker paradigm.  Are they just going work and work on that thing
and never quite have it done or not done quite right?  Are they
going to have one ready to go for the AA chipset or for the A600? 
How long will it REALLY be before we see the 386/486 emulation. 
Are they going to get some money and people on it like a real
company and perhaps grow or are they stuck in some Amiga-hacker-
specific paradigm and hack into the night by themselves for a few
years?  I don't know, but it worries me.



                              NCW
    
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy