From: vombruch@quando.quantum.de (Stefan vom Bruch)
Subject: Re: Atari marketing was: ding dong.. who's there ? Dr who..
Organization: Quantum Software GmbH, Dortmund, Germany
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 10:18:36 GMT

Oliver Meyer (oliver@drunol.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) wrote:
:vombruch@quando.quantum.de (Stefan vom Bruch) writes:
:>There wasn't much he could do apart from telling us what might be possible
:>and what could be done - not because the Falcon isn't able to handle it at the
:>moment but simply because the software isn't available yet. That's hardly
:>surprising however, considering the fact that the Falcon has just been
:>released.
:>Apart from that, when he was talking about image processing for instance, 
:>he mentioned the photo-CD - a medium which itself isn't available yet.
:>The few demos they had showed real potential - a demo says more than 
:>1000 words.
: 
: Ever heard of not telling the truth. A good seller sells you everything
: HE wants, even if there is nothing on that thing YOU need. So, it's easier
: if the sold object is a very nice computer and you like computers, BUT
: if you want to sell it to a lot of people -and not just the few, who want
: to do a voicemailbox with it- you must tell them what they CAN do and not
: what they COULD do (even if it's not true).
: 
: Oliver
: 
: P.S. I think honesty is a virtue.

Okay - so what you're actually saying is, you would prefer to buy a computer
that is advertised as the fastest, most colourful machine ever, compatible
to everything and able do calculate raytraced scenes within split-seconds 
while ftp-ing files and making tea in the background and you wouldn't
mind a bit coming home and plugging it just to find out that it's a nice
machine but it's not as fast as you thought, the graphics are interlaced,
it doesn't run your favorite ST software and raytracing still takes hours
because, well, that is advertising, isn't it? :-)

While I agree that the show could have been better and I would have prefered
to see some more examples of Falcon-specific software, I don't think that
Atari would have gained anything by putting liars on the stand. Apart from
the obvious reason that this is definitely not the way to go, it would
have been the wrong place anyway because a) most people on the show are far
to competent to be fooled in such a way; b) the Falcons were there for
everyone to see and everybody could test their software on them so any
unbelievable claims could have been checked right away; c) you can't sell 
a computer by just telling people: it can do this and this and that too
without having some demo to back you up. Everybody would just think, if 
the machine is that great why don't you just shut up and show us? 
The demonstration may not have that good but it would have been a lot worse
with someone just telling you things that you wouldn't believe anyway...

Re: PS: Arguing that Atari should have lied at the show then saying that you
think honesty is a virtue is not a good way to prove your point... what *is*
your point!?!

Stefan

-- 
 _--_|\            Stefan vom Bruch                         vombruch@quantum.de
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