Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!amdahl!kim From: kim@amdahl.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Amiga in the news Message-ID: <5799@amdahl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 3-Mar-87 16:00:22 EST Article-I.D.: amdahl.5799 Posted: Tue Mar 3 16:00:22 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 6-Mar-87 00:36:23 EST Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Lines: 109 Keywords: commodore amiga 2000 what's next [ Warning: Foo(tm) is a Trademark of Fubar Co ... registration pending! ] For balance, here is some positive information that was posted on our internal conference. NOTE THE LAST PARAGRAPH ... wonder what "the EXCELLENT one [solution]" she mentions could be ...? /kim Commodore in the News Quoted without permission from the Chicago Tribune Thomas Rattigan, president and chief executive of Commodore International Ltd., has moved the company several paces back from the brink of bankruptcy. Now, Rattigan is hoping that the company's new product announcements Wednesday at the Hanover Fair in West Germany will convince critics that the slow-selling queen of its product offerings, the Amiga, is more than just a pretty face. The proprietary Amiga line will gain a new model at the top, the 2000, with an MS-DOS co-processor, and a low-priced machine with more memory, the Amiga 500. 'The new Amiga 2000 will be what the machine should have been the first time around,' a company spokesman said. Amiga always has been given high marks for the beauty of its technology. But the unattractivesness of the company's marketing efforts and Amiga's price have not left sizzle marks on the shelves of computer retailers who handled it. Infocorp estimated that fewer than 400 retail computer stores carried it in 1986, but Rattigan pointed out that the company had some success getting into other specialty stores, such as Wurlitzer music centers and Federated consumer electronics stores. Rattigan said the company does not dispute published estimates that about 150,000 units were sold from the products' introduction in September 1985 until the end of 1986. 'Within the context of that achievement, we are not unhappy,' he said, pointing to the market slump in that period. The company had no distribution channel and not much reservoir of good will among computer retailers, not to mention the public's concern about the viability of Commodore itself when Amiga came out. 'We were very close to the edge at that time. Cash in the till was tight,', Rattigan said. 'People were afraid of getting stuck with an orphan, and we were in the midst of our worst losses and couldn't afford to do any more than we did.' 'We were just trying to survive when Amiga was introduced,' Rattigan said. There were other problems as well. 'The software emulator was not up to its billing, and software titles took much longer to get on the market than we expected,' he said. Furthermore, the product was quickly labeled as being not powerful enough for the business market but too expensive for the home market. One retailer described it as machine for people who like computers, not people who want to get work done. But the improved Amiga is designed to make all those complaints disappear --- the company hopes. 'We feel the new Amiga products will lift both volume and profits.' Rattigan said. 'It has been reconfigured to give it business power.' Coming from the man who took Commodore from its Wall Street death watch to three straight quarters of profitability, the situation could be worth watching. The new products will get a one-month jump in the European market, where the name Commodore carries quite a bit more clout, before officially being introduced in the United States. The bridge card, which is not included in the $1,200 to $1,500 price being discussed for the machine (without a monitor), has an 8088 (XT) chip on it. An 80286 (AT) card will be available later, and Rattigan said an 80386 card is 'on the way'. In three to six months, according to Commodore product manager Gail Wellington, software will be available to allow users to cut and paste between MS-DOS and Amiga. Until then, files from certain MS-DOS programs, such as Lotus 1-2-3, can be transferred to some Amiga programs. 'It's a good solution, but not the EXCELLENT one we are planning for the future,' Wellington said. She said the 2000 will run all 1.2 version Amiga software. On the MS-DOS side, every software program tested has been compatible, as are all but one piece of hardware, an add-on accelerator card, she said. -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]