The tight space does have its drawbacks. Although Neil Harris' official title at Atari is director of Marketing Communications, a job that encompasses everything from overseeing Atari's advertising campaigns to a hectic Customer Service operation, his pet project is the Atari Bulletin Board. Harris gets help from three volunteer sysops.
Many businesses now operate bulletin boards to deliver information to customers.
For example, Michtron Software has a BBS that gets 50 calls a day. But as far as we know, Atari is the only microcomputer company that runs its own bulletin board. Most questions are answered by other users in an ongoing dialogue. However, many callers find their questions already answered in the online notes before they even have to ask. Questions about products, software and hardware problems can be addressed 24 hours daily, every day of the year.