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From: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Marketing suggestion for C-A
Message-ID: <1210@spice.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sat, 13-Jun-87 02:34:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.1210
Posted: Sat Jun 13 02:34:09 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jun-87 19:09:39 EDT
Reply-To: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 47

Keywords:


bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) writes:

> >Negotiate with Electronic Arts and give away a free copy of Dpaint I
> >with each machine.
> 
> One *major* problem.  Dpaint I does not work with expansion ram, and thus
> will not work on the new machines.  What a sendOFF!
> Dpaint I is not very multitasking compatible, either.

What a shame that even Electronic Arts can't see it's way clear to
write Amiga software properly.  Aegis Images version 1, perhaps?
Graphicraft?

> >then C-A
> >could give new owners usable software for next to nothing.
> 
> But would SOFTWARE companies like this?!  The market for a programmer's
> editor is kinda down_the_tubes if everyone has Matt's DME...

I'm sure any programmer will be aware enough of the PA software
available for the Amiga that he will know that DME exists and can be
obtained for free.  Granted, this argument doesn't apply to all
software programs (spreadsheets and such, for example), but my claim
is that if the commercial software companies were writing software the
way it should be written, they wouldn't be worried about competition
from the PA market.  If any of you are familiar with the IBM PC editor
Epsilon (a true Emacs clone, with a C-like extension language), you
know how good a program it is.  If it were available for the Amiga, I
would buy it despite the fact I use MicroGnu, a free program.

Of course, giving all Mac owners a copy of MacWrite did stifle the
development of good WP software for the machine, so maybe I am wrong.
But take a look at MindWrite, Write Now! and MS Word, or FullPaint and
SuperPaint.  All these are clearly superior to Apple's software.  They
had to be to sell.

We're still waiting for an Amiga WP that has the features of a typical
MS-DOS package combined with the interface and WYSIWYG capability of a
typical Mac package.  I think commercial software companies can go
much farther with the Amiga than they have, and maybe giving away
software might give them the "kick" they need, setting a minimum
standard that must be met.
-- 

Mike Portuesi / Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department
ARPA:	mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu	UUCP: {backbone-site}!spice.cs.cmu.edu!mjp
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