From: jbono@tension.UUCP (John Bono)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: CBM is dead, alive, dead, alive, dead, alive...
Date: 13 Aug 92 20:17:57 EST
Organization: High Tension BBS

In article <713645267.AA9118@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>, jaker@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Jake
Rose) writes:
>Well, I've been quiet about this whole thing, but I think that there are a few
>points on either side of the argument that have perhaps been overlooked.
>
>First, CBM's at fault for their lack of success in the union for a few
reasons,
>and the American public is at fault for the success of IBM PC-compatibles for
>a few more.
>
>In order to compete in the American computer industry, which is becoming more
>and more computer *service* oriented rather than hardware-oriented, CBM needs
>to do several things.  First, they need to provide a regular pricing scheme
>that is at least somewhat logical, so that people can confidently purchase
>equipment from them without worrying that the prices might go up or down at
any
>moment.  Second, they need to get software houses into the picture, offering
>them incentives to enter the Amiga market.  This could even entail funding
them
>on a few early projects, or even writing the software and then selling it to
>other companies to continue development with.  Claris software is an example
of
>this, as is MicroSoft.  Claris is a spin-off company from Apple computer, and
>MicroSoft was initially funded by IBM to write software for PC-compatibles.
>Both of these markets have done well, since there were at least the basic
pieces
>
>of software available that people look for on a computer.
>
>       The Amiga market has matured to a certain degree, so quality word
>processing and desktop publishing packages are starting to come available,
>primarily due to CBM finally realizing that a 1985 OS just wasn't going to cut
>it for all eternity.  But these products need to be advertised alongside the
>machine - maybe bundle some good productivity software with Amigas, like a
>simple word processor - just so people who enter the Amiga world don't have to
>start out with nothing and no real ideas about where to go to get anything.
>
>       Hot, classy advertising is another problem.  I mean, cut a few percent
>off Irv's salary and get the US executives interested in the machines! 
Perhaps
>the best use of some development money would be spent producing a file
>conversion utility such as Macs come with these days for translating between
>foreign word processor, spreadsheet, etcetera formats to native Amiga ones.
>
>       There are two big problems with Amiga hardware, too.  Only recently is
>any kind of networking support coming out of CBM, and business *requires*
>networking these days in the US.  Virtually every place with any kind of
office
>automation has their systems on some sort of network, and without any kind of
>readily available networking support, the Amiga is right out of the picture.
>
>       The second problem with Amiga hardware is its self-incompatibility.
>>From one machine to the next, I have never seen hardware come out of one
>company that used so many different bus systems, interfaces, and chip sets.
>When I heard about the the A600, I wondered if CBM had learned anything in
>building the 3000 - it broke so many standards!  It used an IDE interface for
>the drive, while the 3000 comes standard with SCSI [Great, now if I'm a 600
>owner and I want to upgrade, I have to buy an IDE interface for my drive or
>sell it].  It used data cards like the CDTV, but the formats were different,
>which screws with users exchanging data between machines.  Its internal
>expansion wasn't compatible with the A500, so all the development that Amiga
>companies had put into 500 devices went out the window.  American business
>has accepted the Mac grudgingly because it is a smoothly integrated system,
>for the most part.  Granted, there are some problems with it, but they all
have
>AppleTalk (slow, but it's something), they now have high-density, 
>MS-compatible floppy drives, they support a single hard drive interface
>standard (SCSI), and so on.  If they can accept the Mac only grudgingly, it's
>obvious why they can't take the Amiga, when no two machines can swap devices
>as needed, and upgrades have to be a strenuous exercise.
>
>       Now, for the American public.  The major problem with the American
>market is that it's so big and so governed by businesspeople who have no real
>knowledge of the machines they are using that steering it is virtually
>impossible.  In order for a change to be made, it needs to be directed at the
>business market, so that it will filter down to home use.  Not the other way
>around.  If a machine is targeted for home use, it will stay in the home, and
>it will only stay in homes that have little business affiliation unless people
>can take their work home from the office and use the same tools at home that
>they do there.  What to do about the stubborn, unknowledgeable people at the
>top?  I'm not sure anything *can* be done.  Certainly, trying would involve
>offering free seminars on using the Amiga in business markets, not for "video
>production" and the things that the Amiga is easily best at (don't wimp out,
>CBM), but for real business applications - spreadsheets, DTP, word processing,
>etcetera.  A more productive idea might be to offer systems with networking
>capability to new businesses at low cost.  Sacrifice a little now to gain
>later, CBM - think ahead!  Compete with PC-compatibles in *price* as well
>as performance and win!  It's possible to get a fully built 486 for under
>$2000 now, and you're offering a similarly equipped 040 for $6000?  Compare
>the Amiga in terms of performance against Macs and IBMs - show that it can be
>more cost-effective to take the Amiga route!  Government agencies here are
>required to take the lowest bidder that meets their requirements - meet their
>requirements and be the lowest bidder, and you've expanded your user base!
>
>       Blow them away - show off the features of the Amiga, don't just leave
>them to figure it out for themselves.  Offer as much support as you can think
>of.  Go out of your way to make at least a few sites really happy with the
>Amiga.  Above all, don't forget that these are people you're dealing with, and
>they deserve respect and the best you can give them.
>
>Jake Rose               | 
>NeuSoft/Amiga           | "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!"
>jaker@csugrad.cs.vt.edu | 
 
It's a mistake to price the Amiga down at the same level as the clones.  The
3000T/040 is a far superior machine in terms of both reliability and horsepower
to any Taiwanese clone that you can get for 2K.  The Amiga needs to be priced
somewhere in between that of the Macs and high end Intel boxes.  Because the
Amiga is priced lower than the Mac, people who might buy a mac for color
processing or other graphics related work will look at the Amiga as a suitable
and lower cost alternative.  Pricing higher than mid- to highend  Intel boxes
is valid because the purchaser is not buying a system that works just like any
old clone, but has a number of advantages in terms of hardware, bus speed, OS,
and superiority in a defined field(Multimedia and desktop video).  One area
which I would like to see the Amiga branch out into, but probably won't, is
database server software.  If one looks at the internals of an A3000 or 3000T,
it is pretty obvious that the machine would make a demon of a transaction
processing system.  The SCSI implementation is the fastest in the industry, the
system can easily do heavy duty multitasking and no one process or processes
dog out due to lack of cpu access(I have rarely if ever seen my A3000 slow up
due to DMA contention or because of excessive disk access).  I think the A3000
would great for places which cannot afford a Workstation or Minicomputer to
database work, but find the typical 486 to be too slow when running OS/2.  If
only the software were available.
 
John