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From: FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: More mail order grumbling
Message-ID: <8709240110.AA01720@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 23-Sep-87 13:18:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8709240110.AA01720
Posted: Wed Sep 23 13:18:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 10:46:56 EDT
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At the risk of being a grouch, I'm still not convinced of Atari's grasp
of the real world is too firm.
From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Neil Harris)
>  Our goal is to improve the quality of the local dealers.  The bulk of the
>market is not made up of bit-wise folks like you.
True of the market in general, but is it for ST buyers?  All the ST users I
know are hacker types, either hardware or software.  The uninitiated first-
time buyer says, "the ST sure looks nice, and the price is reasonable, but
I'd be more comfortable with a big-name company for my first purchase" and
they get an Apple or IBM.
>If we are to achieve any
>serious market penetration here in the USA, we must have good dealers and
>lots of them.  We cannot get those dealers until the mail order situation is
>cleaned up.  Period.
Two problems.  First, if the ST was the only game in town (pardon the
expression), cutting mail order would improve dealer sales, but there
are plenty of other players.  If a buyer can't get an ST cheaply and
conveniently (no dealer in easy driving distance) they will most likely
buy brand x that does sell mail order or (if x==ibm or apple) will buy one
at the brand x dealer down the street.
Second, dealer hand-holding is definitely nice, but I think the support
needed for market penetration goes much deeper than the dealer level.
For example: up-to-date, accurate technical documentation; timely OS upgrades
and bug fixes; product release schedules accurate to the nearest quarter;
etc, etc.  As it stands, if I was a nasty Amiga or Mac dealer and a buyer
came by who was considering Atari, I'd haul out an ST, crank up ST Basic,
and put it through its Bill the Cat imitation (ack, barf, gag)...then say,
"they've been shipping that Basic for about two years, and as you can see
it is crawling with bugs.  Do you really want to buy from a company that
can't even fix its Basic?"
At present I'd say the ST is still the best home computer on the market,
easily.  It is also a good choice for a personal workstation for students
and others on constrained budgets.  But I'd never recommend it to a business
user, at least until there is some real support beyond the little bandaids
that dealers can supply.
There are a couple of people here planning to buy STs mail order with
research grant money.  If the mail order market is gone by the time the
money comes through, they will probably get cheap macs through Apple's
university discount program...
Don Rice
FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET