Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sask.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!harpo!utah-cs!sask!custead
From: custead@sask.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: Bye-Bye Beta
Message-ID: <346@sask.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jan-84 00:54:50 EST
Article-I.D.: sask.346
Posted: Fri Jan 27 00:54:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jan-84 05:49:39 EST
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada
Lines: 35

There was a full page article in the January 16, 1984 edition of TIME
entitled   "Max Troubles for Betamax".  (subtitle -- Sony struggles
as its videotape-recorder market slides away.)

I am not about to type in the whole thing but here are the key lines...
(copied without permission, etc...)

-----------------------

Japan's Sony Corp. has long boasted that it is "the one and only."
But that confident advertising slogan now is beginning to sound hollow...

Sony's troubles stem from a disastrous slump in sales of its Betamax
videotape recorder...Last week Zenith announced that it would no longer
sell Sony's machine under its brand name.  Zenith thus joins companies
such as Toshiba and NEC that have abandoned Sony's videotape system in
favor the VHS method....Says one industry watcher in Tokyo: "Zenith's
move means the demolition of the Sony-led Beta group."

Says...[another] industry analyst..."The longer Sony sticks with
Betamax, the more severely it'll get beaten."

-------------------------

There is a graphic accompanying the article showing Beta market
share monotonically decreasing from 100% in 1975 to 25% in 1983.
(Any curve-fitting program would predict 1984 market share to be < 25%.)
Of course TIME is a foreign publication :-) so take this as you will.

By the way, I notice in the marketplace one can now buy Sony brand
VHS tapes.  Verrrry Interesting......

					A view from the North
					Larry Custead
					univ of saskatchewan