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From: taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.212330.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 91 03:23:30 GMT
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Lines: 56


In article <17192@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:

>Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics.  So do I.  However,
>it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an
>operation this is.  Let's look at the PC market in comparion.  They have a
> [stuff deleted]
>So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been
>sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out.
>They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize.

   OK, designing a chipset is quite a bit of work.  However, it would 
help if Commodore was spending more on research and development.

   As a friend of mine said in a recent message in this thread, companies
in the U.S. spend an average of around 8% of their total sales on R&D.
This is considered fairly poor, because companies in Japan spend an 
average of 15% of their total sales on R&D.  In fact, Business Week ran
an article once that said, basically, that if American companies do not
start spending more on R&D, that America will continue to lose technological
ground to other countries.

   Now let's look at Commodore.  Until recently, Commodore had been spending 
only slightly more than 2% (actually 2.1%) of their total sales on R&D.
In the 1990 fiscal year, they raised it, but only to slightly more than
3%.  No wonder it is taking Commodore's engineers so long to produce that
chipset... 

   In a world where spending of 8% of total sales on R&D is considered
poor, spending of 3% of total sales on R&D is much too low.  Big
companies like Exxon or IBM can get away with spending small amounts
(as a percentage of total sales) on R&D, but a small company like 
Commodore cannot.  The average for the computer industry is around 7%,
and until Commodore gets their R&D spending up to at least this level
(preferably much higher, because small companies tend to have to
spend larger percentages of their sales on R&D than large companies),
Commodore will continue to lose technological ground to their competitors.

   In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's
engineers because Commodore has so few of them.  If Commodore had been 
spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all 
along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work
on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now.  As it is,
the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years, 
if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore
engineers on CSA.
  

>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
>   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
>	"Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, 
>	 gonna be alright"		-Bob Marley


                                   -MB-