Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!bbn!cc5.bbn.com!denbeste From: denbeste@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Amiga: A market analysis Message-ID: <1444@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM> Date: Sat, 30-May-87 16:19:15 EDT Article-I.D.: cc5.1444 Posted: Sat May 30 16:19:15 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jun-87 00:44:11 EDT Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA Lines: 241 This is an attempt to describe and analyze all the markets which the Amiga could conceivably be sold to: Business: The business marketplace is well described by two words: "timidity" and "inertia". The problem that any innovater in a business has is that if he proposes a radical idea and moves heaven and earth to get it into place, two things can happen: It might succeed, in which case his boss will take credit, or it might fail, in which case he himself gets the blame. So why try? That is why two things happen: any tool takes a long time to get established, but once it does it takes on a life of its own. Computerland still makes a bundle selling XT's because it is known and trusted and understood. It's obsolete, too, but who cares about that? I see this market breaking three ways: Secretary's desk - First there was the manual typewriter, then the electric typewriter, then the auto-correcting electric, then the Wang (a trademark) word processor which was better but very expensive. All those typewriters came from IBM, so when IBM finally decided to sell computers in this market, the business world breathed a collective sigh of relief and went back to a manufacturer they trusted. Important questions asked by people in this market: 1. Does it work reliably? 2. Will the manufacturer be around tomorrow? 3. Who will repair it when it breaks, and how long will they take? 4. When they repair it, will it stay repaired? 5. Is there any way that this is risky? Strange as it may sound, price is not a consideration in this market. Any solution under perhaps $4000 is acceptable. As far as I can tell right now, this market is split between the PC and the MAC. I would hate to try to guess proportions, but I suspect that the PC has a substantial edge - because it is less risky, and for no other reason. There is a truism: "Nobody ever got fired for recommending purchase of IBM equipment." I think the Amiga has no prayer of penetrating this market: Commodore is an unknown quanitity, it is thus a very risky proposition to use the Amiga, repair service isn't sufficiently easy or fast, and it doesn't have any commensurate advantages to outweigh these drawbacks. Manager's desk - Sometime after the secretaries began to have computers on their desks, their bosses noticed them and decided they couldn't live without them. This began in the accounting market with a guy who decided he had to do spreadsheets, and spread from there. As best I've been able to observe, only three kinds of programs run on this machine: Spreadsheet, Scheduling aid (PERT or equivalent), Word processor (yes, because many managers are finding that it is easier and faster to type a letter than to dictate it; but they do so in rough form, then give a disk to their secretary, who cleans it up and prints it - which means they have to have the same computer, and here lies the heart of some savvy marketting campaigns...). Essentially the same questions are asked here as for the secretary, and for the same reasons the Amiga probably hasn't got a prayer. I'd like to take this opportunity to emphasize that technical excellence doesn't mean a damn thing in this market, nor does price matter much. Again, IBM mostly owns this market. In fact, the PC was designed for precisely this market. Executive "badge" - Once the lower level managers in the company start having computers on their desks, it became a corporate badge, like the floor your office was on, or the number of secretaries passed to reach that office, or how many windows it had, or whether you had a reserved parking place. This computer is in the office to be seen, not to be used. Snob appeal is the key here. The more expensive the computer the better (up to a point - then it becomes conspicuous consumption and is a bit gauche). Also, though, it has to be extremely easy to understand and learn for someone who doesn't know very much about computers. The PC-AT has this market cold, and much as I despise MS-DOS, it is an almost ideal operating system for people like this (or the other managers). For all its faults, it is easy to learn and understand. This guy doesn't need the power of an AT, but that has nothing to do with anything. Amiga hasn't got a prayer here except with mavericks - it hasn't got any snob appeal. Only name brands matter - it is a symbol and must be recognized as such. (By the way, portables have made significant inroads in this market... the proof is that IBM finally broke down and started selling one.) Engineering development workstation: This market consists of trying to replace all the terminals which are hooked with central computers with individual computers on each engineer's desk. Main competitors in this market are Apollo and Sun, with Metheus, Mentor, Tektronix and (sigh) IBM also trying to get into it. I've heard that right now Sun dominates it and I've heard that they deserve to. Three kinds desks are of concern here: SW - Snob appeal plays very little in this decision. Instead, the questions run more like this: What tools are available for it (including big-time stuff like networking, cross-assemblers and cross-compilers)? How reliable is it? How easy is its use? How good is its documentation? Who repairs it and how long do they take? How likely is it that the company will surivive? Networking is essential here, as is a built-in hard disk and some way of doing regular and reliable backups of it. HW - HW guys are almost as knowledgeable about software and tools as SW guys, but the tools they need are much different: circuit CAD, circuit simulators, auto-layout programs - these are heavy duty number-crunching programs, so to a much greater extent than SW guys they will be concerned about MIPS count. They also need hard disks backup, and perhaps networking (though it is less important). Also interface to plotters is vital. ME - I don't understand this market very well, so the following are guesses: Architectural and mechanical CAD packages are necessary, as well as interface to plotters and relative ease of use - but these people are not fools and don't need an oatmeal operating system. They need power and are willing to make concessions to get it. Global comments: Price is a critical issue here: NO engineering group ever has as large a capital budget as it would like, but their needs in instrument-count is constant, so the cheaper, the closer they can come to buying all they need. However, price is the means by which they will decide among products satisfying the other criteria. They will not buy something that doesn't solve their problem no matter how cheap. A1000 loses out here: no networking and no hard disk. A2000 may just barely squeeze in if someone writes the software - then folks who don't need networking may consider it. I consider this an outside possibility; Commodore just doesn't have the reputation that it needs; "You want us to buy our development tools from a maker of Video Games???" Lab automation: There are a heck of a lot of small, medium or large laboratories in this country, and they spend a lot of money on equipment, almost all of which comes with IEEE-488 interfaces (GPIB to old-timers like me), and for obvious reasons they'd like to control all of them with a computer and analyze the results with it. There are some computers designed for this purpose specifically, and I would guess that right now Hewlett Packard dominates this area. No computer without a GPIB interface would even be considered. Factory automation: How many of you can say "Relay Ladder Logic"? Originally factory automation was with relays. You think the business world is conservative? The computers that they use now for this job literally present the system as a series of simulated relays, which the electrician connects as if they were real, in order to get the performance he asked for. The computer presenting this morass goes through heroic transformations to turn it into something it knows how to handle. Amiga in this market? Forget it. Broadcasting: Radio broadcasting isn't any different from any other business as far as the Amiga is concerned, but TV? That's another matter. Anybody want to compete with Grass Valley Group? Incredibly reliable, very powerful and grossly expensive. The potential exists here to put the Amiga in at the low end creating graphics for TV news or sports. I'm afraid that the Amiga's graphics, nice as they are, may still not be quite up to it. First off, you gotta dispense with those guard-bands on the side of the screen (I think I've heard that the latest DPAINT can do this - I know that the version of IMAGES I've got can't). You've got to generate NTSC standard graphics - and that means interlace. I suspect that only the 640*400 (plus guardband area) mode is good enough, and then the question is "Are 16 colors sufficient?" Maybe for the low end, no way for the high end. In any case, a heck of a lot of good software would be needed, and it wouldn't be cheap to purchase since it probably would only sell a few hundred copies... Education: Even as I write this the sight of a computer in a class room is as common as the sight of a movie projector (maybe more - I bet they are replacing the projectors with VCRs). They are really used for two kinds of things: Teaching about computers, and teaching about everything. The latter isn't a very well explored area for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that schools are notoriusly bad software pirates!) but the Children's Television Workshop has done some good things for the Coco. The first question and the last question asked when purchasing is "How much does it cost?" The other question is "How much educational software is available for it?" "How powerful is it?" isn't a consideration, since if it is slow that means that a student waits (and a student's time doesn't cost the school system anything). Frankly, Amiga should do very poorly here - these folks buy things like Cocos and C64s! Musicians: I don't pretend to understand this bunch. The impression I have gotten is that the ST is doing better here than Amiga because it has a built-in MIDI port and because the software support for Amiga isn't very good, but I could be wrong. In any case this doesn't appear to be a very large market, since musicians are notoriously poor. Hobby: And then there are the people who buy computers for themselves, just to play with: high school students: Despite Commodore's ludicrous "If you don't buy your kid a Vic-20 he'll grow up to be a rock musician" ad campaign, the principle is becoming more and more true: A high school student WILL do better in school if he or she owns a computer at home. Many parents take this to heart, but having had experience with at least one musical instrument which is now collecting dust in the closet, $500 is probably the most you can expect such a parent to spend. "Maybe later we'll buy something better, but for now let's get something cheap and see if he likes it." Who do you think has been buying all those C64's all these years? adult self-education: Then there is the 50-year-old who has, all these years, been afraid of automated bank tellers and whose image of computers bears a strong resemblence to HAL, but buckles down and decides that, by gum, he's really going to get a computer and try to learn what these things do. His language of choice is Basic (when it isn't FORTH) and his purchasing habits are all across the spectrum. NOBODY can predict what this guy will buy, and it is a sufficiently nebulous market group that I don't see how anyone could target it - but IBM has given it a try. One reason is that there is substantial overlap between this group and the "senior executive" group above, which is why the "little tramp" image - easy, friendly, loving, nonintimidating. ("Everyman" uses the PC, easily, and solves his problem...) Some of these guys are impressed with nifty-keens, and perhaps the Amiga might penetrate with them, but this group is almost archetypally cautious - name-brands win out here. Much as we'd like to believe otherwise, Commodore isn't a name brand with most people - I bet that fewer than 10% of the people have ever heard of them, compared to (I bet) 75% or more for IBM. technotoy freaks: You know who you are... fascinated by technical innovation and unimpressed (or even negatively impressed) by big names. I divide this group into two classes: Poor and Affluent. The poor ones (or let's be charitable: "frugal ones") buy ST's, the affluent ones (or to be uncharitable: "spendthrifts") buy Amiga's. (The very-affluent-and-stupid buy Macs - but I can't conceive why anyone in their right mind would buy a Mac for home use...) I have just read an article asking why Amiga doesn't try for another market nitch. As far as I can see, there just isn't another one that it can compete in as it currently exists. There are a couple that the A2000 might do slightly well in, but in each case it will be fighting an uphill battle. The fabled A2000 IBM compatability is intended to give them a prayer in the business market (which is larger than all the others combined) - but they still have a massive problem penetrating the inertia, with the risk-factor of the repair service they don't have (compared to what IBM has, anyway, with on-site repair guaranteed within 24 hours). That kind of thing is worth twenty times what nifty-graphics is or other such. Most of the people I have seen here trying to redesign the Amiga to make it commercially successful have concentrated on more nifty features - and only the technotoy freaks care about that, and Commodore has already saturated that market. What would you suggest they do (besides improving their repair service up to the level of IBM's and what they've done for the A2000)? -- Steven Den Beste Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA or CSNET) "The voice within the candle whispers of a timeless peace beyond." - Paul Winter