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From: gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari slanders Micro RTX and MT C-Shell
Message-ID: <1990Aug6.022523.26967@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 6 Aug 90 02:25:23 GMT
References: <4236@bdt.UUCP> <104640@convex.convex.com>
Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia
Lines: 33

In article <104640@convex.convex.com> rosenkra@convex1.convex.com (William Rosencranz) writes:

>atari is simply kidding themselves in the long run. but then, it
>seems they may not be in it for the long run anyway. software is
>EVERYTHING in their market. the box is just a commodity. look at
>how people compare platforms: $$$, MHz, MB, # ports, etc. they
>don't say anything about s/w, which is what all non-programmer
>users are (or should be) interested in.

Actually, someone from Atari talked a little about their marketing
thoughts and the TT. It has 2 major markets:

1) upgrade for the existing ST "power user". You can run most all ST
   software on it, so there's your software base.

2) low-end Unix workstation. For many government bids, source-level
   compatibility is all that's required. For other bids, you don't
   need to bid lots of software, depending on the niche you're
   trying to attack. For example, my department only bought 2
   pieces of software for our Suns: FORTRAN and IDL.

   For the rest of the market, they do have a developer's program
   which requires you to cough up $$ up front but allows you to buy
   hardware for cheap. I don't have any idea how many software
   people are taking advantage of this. We'll have to wait until
   the TT actually hits the shelves.

As usual, we aren't going to find out what's really going on until the
TT hits the shelves. We can sit around all day guessing about things we
don't know, and we won't get anywhere.

--
"In fact you should not be involved in IRC." -- Phil Howard