Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekig5!brianr
From: brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Better than Advertising
Keywords: value enhancement
Message-ID: <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>
Date: 19 Mar 90 04:22:52 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 32

Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's
feeble advertising campaigns.  I can't say how effective
the pre-Christmas media barrage was in generating sales,
but I remember hearing that Commodore spent several millions
of dollars on the effort.

Given the enormous costs of advertising, it might just be cheaper
to eliminate the main objections many people have against buying
an Amiga:  lack of a commercial-quality spreadsheet, and lack of
WYSIWYG-capable document preparation.

It would be interesting if Commodore could afford a little
experiment:  take the same amount of money, and:

1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3
   spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler.

2) Accelerate the implementation of outline-style fonts
   and printer drivers so that Amiga WP products could
   produce decent output without writing their
   own printer-specific drivers.

3) Develop a cheap but effective office networking scheme,
   a la AppleTalk.


Maybe item #2 would be too expensive, but I bet that #1
could have been done for less money than Commodore spent
on the print ads, and would have generated more sales.


Brian Rhodefer