Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!mcnc!xanth!kent From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Bundled Software Message-ID: <1822@xanth.UUCP> Date: Tue, 4-Aug-87 09:01:57 EDT Article-I.D.: xanth.1822 Posted: Tue Aug 4 09:01:57 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Aug-87 07:27:51 EDT References: <17701UH2@PSUVM> <1583@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <18543@cca.CCA.COM> <19938@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) Distribution: na Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Lines: 98 Keywords: dry up development = dry up sales. Summary: Please don't! In article <19938@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> robinson@renoir.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Michael Robinson) writes: >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. (Here I am, still holding this Commodore common stock, see...) Didn't we learn a lesson when Apple tried this with the Mac? You bundle a moderately good package really cheap with the purchase of the hardware, and all development work in that area comes to a complete halt. Do we really think that Deluxe Paint II is the last word in paint programs? More important, what kind of a response is this to Aegis for all the fine work they have done on Images and follow on software, giving a tremendous boost to Amiga 1000 sales, to suddenly cut them off at the knees by bundling a competitors product with the hardware? If Commodore does this, they will get a short term boost in sales, but the long term result will be stagnant software development, and a machine perceived by the potential purchasers as past the exciting part of its life cycle, and therefore on a downhill slide. I mean, the proposed packages have pretty well blown away all but the games market. Talk about your excellent way to be thought of as a games machine; what else will be the perception if all that is left of the software development effort is games makers? As a user about to buy a machine, I guess I'd get pretty excited about such a bundle, but as a developer, I'd much rather see a bundle that says: choose one from each of ( textcraft, scribble,... ), ( Deluxe Paint II, Aegis Images,...), (Lattice C, Aztek C, ...), (TDI, Benchmark, ...), ...[sorry if I don't know all the players' names], so that the market was still open to all the competent packages. Better still not to bundle at all, and thereby avoid damaging the software (and thus ultimately the hardware) market with biased economics. I think it would do a lot less damage to bundle an assortment of the really snazzy games, since games are what most folks get into first when they get the box home. Let each games house nominate their best example game, as a come on to sell more games. Unlike editors, databases, or spreadsheets, games don't directly eliminate the competition by making a sale; in fact, selling one great game probably promotes the sale of the next one [Hey, EA, Where's my Bard's Tale II?] both by the same vendor, and by other vendors with a good reputation, so probably no-one on the developers' side would feel the goring of their ox quite so painfully as on the productivity and business and programming sides. While I'm chiding CBM, are you guys ever going to get us a debugged AmigaBASIC? If not, please unbundle it so that the market will open to competition. I was appalled to get my 1.2 upgrade and see not one word about fixes to the bugs and disfeatures of AmigaBASIC. This is a prime example of why not to bundle software. What impetus has EA to debug Deluse paint II, say, if they are already guaranteed a sale with every Amiga? They have already saturated the market. Similarly, why should Microsoft provide an IFF save and restore capability in AmigaBASIC, or fix the long integer multiply bug? It won't increase their sales one whit. As a stockholder (albeit pretty small potatoes) I see the bundling decision as a way to damage the long term health of the Amiga product line, and recommend against it in the strongest terms. I didn't mind the precipitous price drop after the management massacre; the market always overreacts to shakeups, and it may (or may not, I'm in no position to judge) have been a perfectly sound business decision. On the other hand, with the example of the Mac software market, which only recovered when software bundling with the Mac stopped, CBM has plenty of evidence that this is a _bad_ decision, and should avoid it like the plague. The word we have over the net from Europe is that the 500 is selling itself. Why mess up a good thing? [Exit soapbox.] Kent, the man from xanth. -- Kent Paul Dolan, LCDR, NOAA, Retired; ODU MSCS grad student // Yet UUCP : kent@xanth.UUCP or ...{sun,harvard}!xanth!kent // Another CSNET : kent@odu.csnet ARPA : kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu \\ // Happy USPost: P.O. Box 1559, Norfolk, Virginia 23501-1559 \// Amigan! Voice : (804) 587-7760 -=][> Last one to Ceres is a rotten egg! -=][> Show me a religion which has NEVER been used as an excuse to commit murder, and I'll give up ethical atheism. Until then, it is to laugh.