Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!portal!portal!cup.portal.com!Classic_-_Concepts
From: Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Re:Byte by Byte / WordPerfect
Message-ID: <27063@cup.portal.com>
Date: 18 Feb 90 18:35:58 GMT
References: <87.25D6A8B2@afitamy.fidonet.org>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 43


   It makes me nervous to see good products or major companies dropping
their Amiga lines and continuing to support the software on other computers
(Mac, Blue).  People are quick to charge the companies with 'greed', but
if it were simply that, wouldn't they want to sell to as many different
markets as possible, thus including, rather than excluding the Amiga?
   Having seen this happen to not a few products in the last 6 months, I'm
forced to speculate on other reasons.  We all know the average price of
good software on the Amiga is lower than on most other systems.  Desktop
publishing programs on the Mac run $300-$500ish, on the Amiga they are
about half.  The same goes for many other categories, including business
software.
    Also, in spite of an installed base of over a million machines, major
players are still noticeably absent.
    It's obvious that developing applications for a computer that includes
both line mode and windowing interfaces is going to take a bit longer than
developing for line mode only or windowing system (Mac) only, so we could
expect development time and costs to perhaps be higher.  Also, the Amiga
crowd appears to be more critical and particular about the quality of
software.  This is good, I think, but again would increase development time
and costs.
    This is pure speculation, so easy on the flames, and I'd love to hear
from some of the developers who have stayed away from the Amiga, BUT, are
prices of Amiga software too low to provide incentive?  And I'm not talking
about incentives for big profits, I mean just enough to cover development
and after-sale support (which is a big chunk of the cost)? 
    What provoked me to write this is a local friend who has been a STRONG
promoter and advocate of the Amiga since early 1986.  He's been very active
in users groups, he's demoed the machine all over the place, he helps
everyone with Amiga problems...  He recently bought an AT-clone for some
of his consulting work with non-Amiga clients.  Almost every day he calls
to tell me about some exciting, well-designed piece of software (a lot of
it database-oriented) on the IBM and bemoans the fact that there's nothing
like it for the Amiga, which he considers a superior architecture (and so
do I).
    Well, when someone that informed and that pro-Amiga comes off as just
generally p*ssed off at the machine and is spending his leisure time playing
with IBM applications, I can't help but spend time trying to understand
the whys/wherefores, and, more important, what could be done to rectify the
situation.  Any ideas, comments or constructive solutions people might like
to offer?  Seeing the Amiga version of Sculpt-Animate 'dropped' broke my
heart since the Amiga SHINES in this area.                         
                                    LadyHawke@cup.portal.com