Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!gdt!exspes
From: exspes@bath.ac.uk (P E Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: OK, so they sell the STe in Europe...
Message-ID: <1990Feb13.115340.5645@bath.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Feb 90 11:53:40 GMT
References: <9002020807.AA08400@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <4876ef20.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Organization: University of Bristol c/o University of Bath
Lines: 23

In article <4876ef20.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes:
>
>Jan, the USA market is being relegated to Third World Status by the marketing
>of Atari Corp. There is no other explanation for Atari Corp selling new products
>in Europe first. As far as the USA market being so much smaller than the Europoen
>market, that is the fault of Atari Corp. If Atari Corp were to aggresively market
>the Atari ST/TT computers here in the USA, than the USA market would be bigger
>then the Europeon market.

There is ONE good reason for selling to Europe first.  In general, FCC type
approval is harder to get than the corresponding approvals in Europe.  So,
Atari can begin selling the machines over here before they have been
tightened down to FCC specs.  Or, in other words, it may be that Europe is
being used to 'bug-chase' the machines before they are released in the
States, rather than being favored.  Certainly, if problems DO occur with the
early versions of a machine, it is better to have them surface in the market
which is potentially smaller, rather than in the one which is potentially
large.


-- 
Paul Smee, Univ of Bristol Comp Centre, Bristol BS8 1TW, Tel +44 272 303132
 Smee@bristol.ac.uk  :-)  (..!uunet!ukc!gdr.bath.ac.uk!exspes if you MUST)