Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!uwvax!oddjob!sphinx!abg1 From: abg1@sphinx.uchicago.edu (andrew brian gross) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Amiga's Worst Enemy Message-ID: <1640@sphinx.uchicago.edu> Date: Fri, 8-May-87 15:33:44 EDT Article-I.D.: sphinx.1640 Posted: Fri May 8 15:33:44 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 9-May-87 19:29:19 EDT References: <18006@sun.uucp> <857@sputnik.COM> Reply-To: abg1@sphinx.UUCP (andrew brian gross) Organization: U Chicago Computation Center Lines: 51 Keywords: Developers programmers comercial software Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:4625 comp.sys.ibm.pc:3857 Summary:A retailer's view Distribution:na There has been a fair amount of speculation recently, both on the net and in Amiga-orientated magazines, about the lack of Amiga software. In particular, it has just been suggested that PD/shareware may be partly responsible for commercial software companies' failure to develop for the machine. I thought that some of you may be interested in what a retailer thinks. (By way of introduction, I have worked the last few summers in various Columbus Ohio computer stores, most recently in a management type position, and yes, I do order from 'big' distributors). Many of the largest distributors that I have done business with-- some of the largest in the country, in fact-- either never carried Amiga software in the first place, or recently dropped it. Most carried games, and not a lot else. Now, having an Amiga myself, you can imagine that I am somewhat distressed by this, and have quized just about anyone I could get my hands on within these organizations. 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***. I tend to agree, to be honest. Last summer, I sold *over 100 ST's* (To put that in context, our store frequently had only one person working at a time-- it wasn't that big :-) ), about half were to people who new virtually nothing--and cared even less-- about computers. The few Amigas we sold (2 or 3) were sold to hackers who knew exactly what they were getting. Similarly friends who worked at other computer stores, including Earthrise (an exclusively Commodore store) commented that they very seldom sold Amigas to people who didn't know much about computers. What does this boil down to? Basically, as far as I (and my distributors) can tell, most people who own Amigas DO NOT WANT OR NEED commercial software-- at least not enough to shell out any kind of reasonable money. Is shareware or PD software a culprit? I don't know. If it is, I think that it is probably more because users want it that way than because it is 'scaring off' commercial developers. In any case, the Amiga 500 -- truly, a 'commercial' machine-- should answer these questions. Finally, I don't think that I've said anything to offend anyone, and I hope that some of you developer/programmer types have gotten a new perspective; but if i did offend anyone, I'm sorry.