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From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga Fading? : Revisited
Message-ID: <1990Mar27.215908.24233@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 27 Mar 90 21:59:08 GMT
References: <15047@snow-white.udel.EDU> <5464@sugar.hackercorp.com> <26994@ut-emx.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Reply-To: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Organization: Columbia University
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	I've heard many arguments here that the Amiga has no
potential, that the Amiga is and always will be a home computer, ...
Also a lot of very opinionated people just saying how much better the
competition is. Although the Amiga has drawbacks, I don't think the
hardware is it. A 25MHz 68030 is quite fast, and as the Personal
Workstation (MIPS?) article said, a 33MHz Amiga (with GVP) rated
better than Macs AND Apollos at the same speed. So speed isn't it.
Also, some people dislike the Amiga interface. TAKE A LOOK AT
MS-WINDOWS AND OS/2! I would much prefer the Amiga interface to any
other besides the Macintosh and MAYBE the NeXT. And who knows what 1.4
will do to the look.
	As I said, there is a downside. I think that is software and
networking availability. There is so much BAD software that if you
don't have someone helping you pick out software you are likely to
choose wrong and suffer the consequences, and also think badly of the
Amiga. There is a lot of good software too, but in the Word Processing
arena there is nothing of the level of Mac Microsoft Word, no
spreadsheet (that I have seen) of the level of Lotus or Excel. I have
heard too many good things about SuperBase, so I will assume it is as
good as dBASE (not saying much). I see a lot of merit in what Gold
Disk is doing, integrating several different kinds of programs.
However, there are failings in the current level of Amiga software.
	Re networking, there is now Amiganet, EtherNet and DecNet and
Commodore is coming out with Novell. X-Windows is already here. The
networking problem is getting better.
	Basically, IMHO (And there have been a lot of not-so HO's
recently), before Copperman, things seemed pretty bad. However, it has
been one year since he took control and things do seem to be changing.
It is too soon to judge what he can or can't do. The A3000 and 1.4,
along with Unix, DO have the potential to turn things around. There
HAS been a lot of coverage of the Amiga recently, in Byte, Personal
Workstation, Publish, AV/Video. In fact, AV/Video bought a booth at
AmiExpo to show their committment. I'd say this is definitely an
improvement in coverage. Give him 6 more months and see what products
are released in the interim. Then judge.
	BTW, the people in Europe have a completely different
perspective. They don't know what the heck a Macintosh is, yet they
have tons of Amigas.
	-- Ethan

Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu

"If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'"
		-- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else