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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcnc!unccvax!jow
From: jow@unccvax.UUCP (Jim Wiley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Amiga's Worst Enemy
Message-ID: <702@unccvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-May-87 13:20:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: unccvax.702
Posted: Sat May  9 13:20:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 10-May-87 05:39:47 EDT
References: <18006@sun.uucp> <857@sputnik.COM> <1640@sphinx.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Univ. of NC at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
Lines: 41
Keywords: (lack of) Advertizing
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:4676 comp.sys.ibm.pc:3892



abg1@sphinx.UUCP (andrew brian gross) writes
> There were *consistently* three reasons given for the lack of 
> interest in supporting the Amiga:
> 
> 1)  Lack of an installed base of users.  The distributors who supply retailers
> simply cannot afford to buy Amiga software in volume.
> 
> 2)  Lack of reliable information/pricing policies/etc. from commodore.  This 
> mainly applies to hardware, of course, but for some reason distributors always
> brought it up anyway.  Basically, they were afraid to get burned holding 
> merchandise that had gotten marked down. Unfortunately, I often got the 
> feeling that this fear extended itself to *anything* related to the Amiga.
> 
> 3)  ***Amiga owners do not buy software!*** Virtually every distributor would
> mention that C-compilers sold like hotcakes, but that he couldn't unload a
> home accounting package to save his life.  Distributors almost universally
> held the opinion that Amiga owners ***do their own programming***.

It seems that people who buy Amigas are people who know about computers
and know what they want in a home computer.  I think a BIG part of the
problem is not so much that "Amiga owners ***do their own programming***"
but that people who do their own programming prefer the Amiga.  There is
a difference.  And there is a reason.  Lack of advertizing.  The lack
of advertizing for the Amiga keeps people who don't know much about
computers in the dark and so they don't know that it's what they really
want.  And these are the same people who buy software rather than write
it.  People who know about computers make it their business to know
what is new and hot.  And these are to people likely to do their own
programming.  The fact that the Amiga sells to people who know what's
great says a lot for the machine.  With a good mass media advertizing
campaign (sp?) to reach the uninformed, the Amiga could command a
large portion of the market.

To C-A: ***ADVERTIZE***

disclaimer: These opinions are my own.  Really...they are.  I thought
them up all by myself.  So there!

Jim Wiley