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From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Wish I had an Amiga 1500
Message-ID: <116105@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 17 Jul 89 22:09:08 GMT
References: <0YkTciy00V4FA0UVUx@andrew.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 106

Rick Francis Golembiewski writes:

>The 500 is a very good machine for it's price and I think that CA will sell a
>a lot of them, however the 2000 is not such a good deal.  Yes it offers the
>expandability, but the cost is too high for the power it delivers.  Right
>now the 2000 is running at about $1400, for $1000 I can get a 16Mhz 2Mb
>AT clone, for the $400 I could get a really good graphics card, DOS, and
>some other softwware.

Rick, try not to compare apples to oranges, or in this case "IBM's to Amigas"
they have different markets and different tradeoffs. A comparable IBM PC
would also need 4 channel stereo sound and a graphics co-processor to 
help with the painfully slow access methods of most PC graphics cards. 
Also don't forget getting a mouse and a copy of Windows since that is
capability the Amiga offers. Ever notice that Deluxe Music doesn't run
on an AT clone ? Anyway, does Commodore want to compete in the VW of
computer markets? I'd rather they didn't. They sell the best approximation
of a personal workstation to date, and it is the least expensive as well.
To compare it to a Mac or PC you _must_ include a window system and 
multitasking OS because that is essential to the Amiga system. If you
could get a copy of X or something to run on MINIX you might be able
to configure a IBM architecture machine to compete with and Amiga but
you'd still need 3 times the memory. The competition is 386 clones and
Mac II's running Windows/386 and Multifinder (or A/UX). Price the
three systems, which one wins? Even with the '020 board you win. 

>  Granted that IBM stuff is not as user friendly, and
> you don't get multi-tasking, but you get more speed more memory, better
> graphics resolution, and a stronger base of productivity software, plus
> a lot more (and cheaper) hardware to expand your expandable machine. 

This is sort of like saying, "Granted you can't actually use this Pinto
as a farm tractor, but gee the gas is cheaper and you don't need a crane
to replace a flat tire." If you or a friend of yours is in the market
for a cheap, difficult to use, high resoloution/slow rendering, 8088
on steroids with a 640K address space and 1-bit audio sound machine
then they *SHOULD* buy a PC. It meets all of their requirements. 

But if they want to buy an easier to use, high speed color video graphic,
stereo sound, multitasking personal workstation that can later be
expanded to a 32 bit processor without replacing the motherboard
machine then they can't buy one for less than an Amiga 2000.

> If the 2000 was priced at $1000 (after discounts) then the 2000 
> could compete pretty well, and the 2000HD and 2500 stack up even 
> worse because 386 machines are getting CHEAP, I can get a 25Mhz 
> 386 for $1800, probabily $2000 for a package deal with 40MB HD, 
> that's $1000 less then the 2500, with that $1000 you could get 
> lots of stuff (a pretty nice A500 system in fact).  So unless
> CA shifts down the price on the 2000 models, then they are going 
> to have some problems moving units.

I don't know how many times this has been said before, but I'll repeat
for the newcomers in the audience. Ever wonder how you design a 386
PC clone ? Do you hire an engineer? A programming staff? No, you
look at the schematic for a Compaq, build your own motherboard, and
plug some PC ROMS in it to see if it boots or not. Then you start
selling them and as complaints about certain products come in you
hone in on perfect cloneness. One dweeb in a garage is all it needs.
So what is your overhead? Nil. 386 Motherboards were selling for $1200
when Intel's best price on the '386 was $400. That is *ONE THIRD* of
the retail price. If there had been any overhead at all you would have
seen prices for motherboards in the $2000 - $3000 range. 

So what does Commodore do? Well I'm sure the materials cost of the 2000
is such that they could sell them and make a profit at $1000. But they
would have to lay off Dave Haynie, no extra bux for design sorry guy.
And then two years from now, you would still have a cheap 2000 and no
3000. After a while, no Commodore at all. What does that buy you? 

The Amiga is an independent architecture. All of the innovative 
OS changes and hardware enhancements have to be built by Commodore.
And Commodore has to fund that engineering effort somehow. The problem
with the Amiga 2000 is not one of price. In marketing speak it is one
of "position." No one in the US has ever had the guts to say "We build
the best personal workstation for the money, here is why you want one."
Copperman might, we'll have to wait and see. The danger with this 
position is that it forces one to "name" the enemy and thus give some
direction to engineering. When engineering is building a high resolution
display with lots of colors and it is getting expensive, it is easier
to kill the project and say, "We don't want to compete with systems like
that, we're a follow on to the C-64 and look at how much better we are."
rather than say, "This is what we build, and we need this to have a 
better story to tell in the offices of the US." At first we believed the
story "The US percieves us as a game machine company." and we went on 
a crusade as developers to change that image, now I hear that same 
phrase used as a crutch to justify a lack of attention to the US market.
No one that I have spoken to that knows the difference between an
Atari ST and an Amiga (eg they have actually looked at these two
machines and realize they are built by two different companies) has
ever said "The Amiga is just a game machine." Rather they show a 
healthy respect for the technology and "understand" why "those 
technical guys" are so crazy about them. Commodore needs to position
the Amiga as a Personal Workstation, much like Apple has been trying
to position the Mac II (ever see those Desktop Media ads?) 

In summary, a PC-AT clone is not competition for the Amiga. You can
do things on both that you can't do on the other without expanding the
system. They are different focuses and different "positions" in the
computer marketplace.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
"A most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"