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From: dca@toylnd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A500 Software Package Coupons
Message-ID: <165@toylnd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Aug-87 23:48:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: toylnd.165
Posted: Sat Aug 29 23:48:23 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Sep-87 02:31:19 EDT
References: <863@percival.UUCP>
Organization: Dave & Anne in Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 34
Keywords: another major policy blunder!
Summary: What policy blunder?

In article <863@percival.UUCP>, baer@percival.UUCP (Ken Baer) writes:
> Commodore has just announced one of their latest promotional efforts for the
> A500.  They are about to send out a bunch of coupons to members of 64/128/Amiga
> usergroups, that entitle the bearer to a significant discount of software if
> they purchase an A500.  The catch is that the coupon is NON-TRANSFERABLE! This
> policy works ok for the 64/128 owners who may want to upgrade, but it doesn't
> make sense for the thousands of Amiga club members. ...

This issue has been definitely beaten to death in this group already.  Whether
CBM made a policy blunder is certainly a debateable point.  As I see it CBM
is trying to suck loyal Commodore users that already have a large investment
in software in their present computers into the Amiga market by offering them
a 'deal they can't refuse'.  The deal they are offering essentially allows
these people to get a boat load of software pretty much equivalent in value
to the price of the A500 they have to purchase.  Any sort of profit that they
are making on the deal must be necessarily slim.  Therefore, offering it as
a general incentive would probably not be wise especially because it would
piss off all the vendors selling competing software to that in the bundle.
Certainly, selling it to Amiga groups would be a little silly as many of them
would buy the A500 just to get the software.  They would get little revenue,
raise the ire of multitudes of software vendors, and virtually no
expansion of the customer base which is probably the point of this whole
exercise.  When preferential treatment is given to any one group it is always
irritating to those outside of it.  But I for one can certainly deal better
with (Commodore 64/128 owner) than (happens to be friend of Commodore 64/128
owner).  Allowing the coupons to be transferable would be a very arbitrary
type of deal rather than the pretty focused deal they seem to have now.
For that matter we might see people scalping their coupons.
If they were to get that arbitrary I think
they ought to make it a general incentive (and I don't think that was
the idea).  As to the wisdom of the deal in general THAT is something
I can't begin to decide on.

David Albrecht