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From: jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP (Green Eric Lee)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: incompetent executives
Message-ID: <260@usl-pc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 01:48:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: usl-pc.260
Posted: Sun May 25 01:48:32 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 28-May-86 19:58:03 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette
Lines: 85

-*-text-*-

OK. Granted, the Amiga is a great computer. And, I'm getting me one of
those suckers, because it's simply a better computer than an IBM
PEE-BRAIN or whatever else is in that price range.

HOWEVER:

What's a great computer like the Amiga doing being marketed by a bunch
of clowns like Commodore??

Suggestions:
  a) The Amiga dealer network is being destroyed by local reps favoring
stereo/electronics stores over "real" computer stores. The
requirements that all Amiga stores have on-site repair facilities and
a technical support person should be adhered to, instead of being
waived for every Federated Video that comes along.
  b) The hardware people should be working on low-cost hard disk drives and
RAM expansions, not modems, or should be helping 3rd parties who do
plan to bring out low-cost hard disk drives and RAM expansions (there
are none now).
  c) In conjunction with b) above, price the expansion bus addition VERY
reasonably.


Symptoms of the problems:
 1) a deal with CRAY for Amigas is being held up because of a feud
between the dealer who got CRAY interested and the local distributor
for CBM, who's mad at that dealer because the dealer got a
grey-marketer shut down and hurt the distributor's volume.
Apple or IBM would have given the dealer a medal.
 2) Soon, tne Amiga is going to be marketed thru the electronic
equivalent of a K-MART, Federated Video or something like that. So
much for dealer network... Federated will drive them all under.
 3) We hear lots of marketing hype about Answermate modems and
Frame-grabbers and all sorts of junk like that. Well, I have news for
you. What businessmen want is
  a) a cheap hard disk so that you don't have to listen to the
floppies grind and
  b) cheap mungo RAM so you can calculate spreadsheets that would make
IBM folk green with envy.
 Neither I or most others care a single twit about Yet Another Modem
(even if it's a particularly good one) or Show Off The Graphics. We
want to do work on the machine, not set it in front of the office for
a rolling demo. One True Blue friend is impressed with the Amiga, but
says with floppies it's just the World's Fastest Game Machine.
 4) The CBM advertising campaign has been simply dismal. First they
try marketing the Amiga like they marketed the C-64, now they have
some silly "your supercharged multi-tasking speed demon" or something
like that, which would be a decent thing to point out, but not in such
a hokey unprofessional manner. Where did CBM get their ad people from,
Des Moines, Iowa?
 5) Executive ineptitude at CBM is simply horrendous. The C-64 has
been their "cash cow" for quite a while now, and looks like it'll stay
that way for quite a while. So what does CBM do? Discontinue
production of the C-64 a few times, once right before Christmas 85
(hoards of anxious mothers loitered outside the local Commodore stores
wanting to buy C-64s, and not a single one was to be found).
 6) A "hacker" mentality at Commodore-Amiga (e.g. "GURU MEDITATION"
instead of "SYSTEM CRASH") doesn't help CBM's professionalism image.

An example of the dealer network problems:
  In Houston, an unauthorized dealer, Colonel Video or something like
that, has sold over 900 Amigas, through cut-rate prices and mucho
advertising.  When those customers want support, they go to the
authorized dealer, who is pi$$ed. So the local dealer goes thru
Colonel Video's garbage bin and finds the reciept of the Amiga dealer
who's selling Colonel their stock on the gray market, and gets that
Amiga dealer shut down. The next day Colonel has a new source, and the
local Amiga dealer cannot get stock, and has to buy Amigas on the gray
market himself. Why?  Simple. Colonel has sold twice as many Amigas.
Bigger is Better. In the meantime, the IBM people look pompous and say
"Well, maybe it's faster and cheaper, but WE have SUPPORT". And the
only way to get that support, without which the IBM people won't look
at the Amiga, is through a dealer network. But CBM is destroying
theirs through foolishness like the above. Pure shortsightedness.
  And another local example, involving another similiar
stereo/electronics store with no service department, no technical
support person available, etc... but I shan't bore you with the
details, you can guess them already.
-- 
Computing from the Bayous,
       Eric Green akgua!usl!usl-pc!jpdres10
            (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)