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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!styx!ames!xanth!kent
From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Recent CBM upheaval
Message-ID: <888@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Apr-87 11:34:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: xanth.888
Posted: Tue Apr 28 11:34:53 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Apr-87 03:26:52 EDT
References: <11465@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Distribution: world
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 37
Keywords: Kmart list price
Summary: price increase probably good

In article <11465@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) writes:
>
>Does anyone on the net have any real information [...]
>What other price/policy changes will be taking place?  I heard that Kmart 
>et al. will now be the major distributor of CBM products.

Well, not REAL real information, but I had an enlightening conversation with a
local dealer last week about the Amiga.

The gist of the conversation was that Commodore had really killed dealer
relations with the list price cut to $1295 for the A1000, which, he said,
was done without consulting with or warning the dealers, and the price
cut all came out of the dealer's profit.  He related the story of a local
dealership, which took delivery on several hundred Amigas, then got the
shock of the price cut.  The owner, he continued, told his sales staff:
"Sell them for what you can get, then close the place down."  He concluded:
"Commodore is never going to succeed if they keep lowering prices."

I thought about this one for a while.  I love, as a consumer, having great
hardware at low prices, but most of the Amiga dealers of last year in the
Norfolk area don't carry the line any more.  It isn't much fun having to
drive to the next town to get service or shop for accessories.  The fellow
I spoke to was selling  off his Amiga software at cost - nobody was buying.
Amiga software piracy locally is rampant, so it is easy to see why.

Driving your dealers out of business is a fine way to end up in Kmart, as is
joining the ranks of PC Clones.  The A1000 was a fantastic machine.  The A2000
is a PC Clone with some nice features, which were unique a year ago but are
state of the art this year (Apple has better sound, IBM has more low res
colors and better high res resolution, Atari does Juggler too..."Runs IBM
software?  Yawn.  I want a home machine for fun.  I have to live with that junk
at the office all day.").  Guess which way of presenting yourself has the
better chance of succeeding in the market.

Disgruntled Commodore stockholder (former happy Commodore stockholder ;-).

Kent.