Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pacbell!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!druhi!dlm
From: dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Tom Hudson is leaving us!
Message-ID: <3263@druhi.ATT.COM>
Date: 21 Jul 88 15:46:16 GMT
References: <3222@crash.cts.com>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 48

in article <3222@crash.cts.com>, mstreet@crash.cts.com (Michael Street) says:
> I just heard the terrible news that Tom Hudson is leaving the ST to go
> to the IBM!  I have only one thing to say about this:
> 
> TOM! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE US!  I'm sure all of you will agree with me that
> Tom Hudson has done more for the Graphics capabilities of the ST than
> any other single person and that such a loss would be disasterous to the
> ST communitity. I hope that Tom will change his mind or at least support
> the ST as well as the IBM.
> 
> And that's the opinion of one concerned Atari ST citizen...
> 
> 					Mike

	What do you expect given the way Atari deals with it's
developers?  Tom is just the latest in a long list of people who have
left the ST behind.  I left Data Pacific because I was tired of dealing
with BS from Atari and not making much money.  I still have lots of BS
to deal with but at least I'm now paid for it.  Tom made essentially the
same choice months ago.  He just spent a lot of time deciding what
should be his new home.  The Amiga, Mac II, and IBM were all considered.
IBM won simply by market size.

	Given the low sales of the ST in the US (and the low software
sales that result from that) it just isn't worth my time to put up with
the BS Atari puts out.  If they had helped their developers maybe things
would be different.  In a small market (the only large market is the IBM
PC) you have to give your developers support.  Apple and CBM do a much
better job than Atari does, they are far from perfect but at least they
do try.

	The ST is a fairly decent machine.  It can be lots of fun to
work with and to program.  Unfortunately it isn't a very good system to
try and live off.  If Atari was interested in selling computers things
might be different.  Unfortunatly they just want to design amazing
vaporware, not sell it.


	One last point -- Tom is still going to support the ST.  Not a
lot but some.  Just like I still am going to write articles with Dave
Small.  But no more trying to live off selling 2 or 4 thousand copies a
year of a program.  It's real hard to live off the $4,000 to $8,000
that makes an author.

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	Dan Moore				ex-Data Pacific programmer,
	AT&T Denver				technical support, hardware
	ihnp4!druhi!dlm				tester and general go-fer.
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