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From: robinson@renoir.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Bundled Software
Message-ID: <19938@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 3-Aug-87 15:56:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.19938
Posted: Mon Aug  3 15:56:03 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Aug-87 05:00:18 EDT
References: <17701UH2@PSUVM> <1583@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <18543@cca.CCA.COM>
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Reply-To: robinson@renoir.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Michael Robinson)
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In article <18543@cca.CCA.COM> rtolly@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Bob Tolly) writes:
>I agree with Bob Page - this will not encourage people to develop
>software for the Amiga. The prices are such that it would be
>hard not to buy one or the other package, even if one doesn't
>want everything in it, and that will close a good portion
>of the market for competitors of these products.

I'm not so sure that this is the case.  As it is, I am somewhat suprised
by the frequency of comments to the effect of "product A does this really
well, product B does this other really well, but to get any work done,
you really need both" when discussing Amiga software.  I suppose this is
fostered by the wide degree of data interchangeability.

The point being that, although a significant market share will disappear 
for certain types of programs, the market will not disappear entirely. Take,
for example, the continued market presence of terminal programs despite the
availability of VT100 2.6 for free.  This reduced market share for 
developers has to be weighed against the phenomenal sales of 500's that
will undoubtably result.  Smaller share, but bigger pie.  Is it worth it?
Just a thought.

On a different note, from what I saw of Pagesetter Deluxe at SIGGRAPH, I
don't think there's much room for competition in that market, bundle or
no.

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Mike Robinson                                 USENET:  ucbvax!ernie!robinson
                                              ARPA: robinson@ernie.berkeley.edu