Reader Mail

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From:  Seth Harman <seth@worf.netins.net>


  To whom it may concern,

    Seeing as what has been happening with the Amiga as of late, I have
been spending alot of time discussing with other people many wishes that we
have as to the direction that Amiga Technologies should take.  For the
machine to succeed in today's market it needs, obviously, to be as
attractive as possible to potential buyers.  The current Amiga user base,
while somewhat large and quite loyal, not only pales in comparison to the
current PC and Mac markets, but is also not adequate enough, in my opinion,
to keep the machine alive for an extended period of time.  This leads me to
the main point of this letter.

One of the things that I feel is tantamount to the survival of the Amiga in
the future is software.  Obviously software availability is an issue but
I'm more concerned with what Amiga Technologies/ESCOM plan on including
with the machines they are going to sell.  Included software is a necessity
in today's market and is an important factor in machine price, obviously,
due to the added cost of the software itself that the company incurs.  With
price as a HUGE issue in recent Amiga history I think this is something
that whoever is in charge of making a decision needs to think about very
carefully. 

Recently, rumors have surfaced that the next Amigas will be shipping with
some version of SCALA as included software.  I'd like to point out, first
of all, that I have nothing to indicate that this rumor has any substance
or not.  But, in case it does, I'd like to make it clear that myself and
many others feel this is not a good idea.

In case you may have forgotten, Commodore tried something strikingly
similar to this a few years ago when they started including AmigaVision
with many new Amigas sold.  From my personal experience and the experience
of others this was an utter waste of money.  Frankly, no one used it. 
Granted, there were a few people that spent alot of time on it creating
elaborate presentations for fun but no one that I have had contact with
could name a single thing they would consider useful come out of that
particular program.  Now I would like to state up front that I believe
SCALA to be light years ahead of AmigaVision but I still don't see what
possible use could come out of this program for the typical user.  I have
heard from some people about all of the current projects around the globe
that involve SCALA in some way or the other but all of them were things
like computer generated displays at major theme parks or baseball stadiums.
SCALA is probably perfect for these applications but I see no real use in
the home market for this program.

From speaking to many different people I have determined that one thing
people believe Commodore to have done right (and I use that phrase loosely)
was to include Final Copy in a package with the 1200's and 4000's.  
Thinking about that I went on a quest to discover what software was most
commonly shipped with machines sold to home users.  [Note: My quest
involved mainly looking at what was shipping with PC's and Mac's but I
really didn't have any other choice] The two most common things I saw being
sold as a package with a machine were a word processor and maybe a game or
two.  In some cases a utility type program, usually a file manager, was
also included (Norton Desktop being the most common one I encountered).

With this evidence in hand I began to ask people what they thought should
be shipped with Amigas.  Mainly I heard "A word processor, a game or two,
and a paint program." The first two I agree with but the second one I'm not
so sure about.  Anyway, my theory on all of this is that people should be
able to by a machine as a package, so that they can go home, plug it in,
and start getting some productivity out of it.  A word processor is a
perfect choice for this since it can appeal to many people regardless of
age or profession.  The game aspect is also important since I can't name a
single person that doesn't like a good game now and then.  Also, what
better way to show off an area the Amiga excels in (graphics) than with a
good game?

The other piece of software I think should seriously be considered is
Directory Opus.  This program is, hands down, one of the most useful pieces
of software in existence for the Amiga.  Out of all the people I know that
use Amigas, I only know of a handful of people that don't use Directory
Opus, and almost all of them run some other type or file manager anyway.  I
think that if the marketing people at Amiga Technologies/ESCOM were to do a
little research into this they'd find out that I'm not too far off the
mark.

In summation, I think that Amiga Technologies/ESCOM should learn from what
Commodore attempted to do and also look at what other companies on
competing platforms are doing.  If the particular combination of software
I'm suggesting works for PC's and Mac's, there must be a reason and I feel
that reason is because that is what people want.  If you want to sell
machines you must heed the wishes of the market.  And once you draw that
market in, I think the Amiga has the power to keep them around.

Seth Harman
seth@worf.netins.net

                        --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

From: "Thomas Hemmer" <HEMMER@Cris.FH-Coburg.DE>
To: jcompton@shell.portal.com, HEMMER@Cris.FH-Coburg.DE

Hi Jason,

15 minutes ago, I got AmigaReport 3.12 and (of course) immediately started
reading.  There's one letter to the editor (hey, that's you ;-)) that I
can't let be uncommented.  Its from Bill Silvey and he complains about the
small number of A4000T Escom will send to North America.  Only 10,000, he
said.

Hey, man!  This means (according to ESCOM) 10,000 in 1995!  Of a total
production of 25,000 in 1995.  They actually can't produce more!  Its not
so easy to get the parts and start assembly in a Fab somewhere in the
world, where probably never any AMIGA was build (Remember that the former
production line of 4000s was in the C= Plant in the Phillipines).  Its a
hell of a job for Amiga Technologies GmbH to get this 25,000 A4000Ts ready
for the Christmas Market, not to forget the 120,000 A1200s the want to sell
this year.  So, and whats about 10,000?  Too less for the american AMIGA
market?  Really?  That's 40%!!!  Never had the american market 40% of the
sales, NEVER!  As I heard that Escom wants to sell 10,000 A4000Ts to North
America, I thought "Well, that's a large number, but o.k.  they ever had a
higher percentage of the high-end-models there, why not.  And ESCOM could
wash away all fears of american AMIGA users, that they won't be supported"
That's what I thought til I read this letter in ar312.

ESCOM will announce a distributor (or more) for the US and Canada.  If
you're lucky, CEI will be among them.  There will be a R&D department in
the US, probably in Norristown.  What else do you want?  What causes this
fears?  Maybe you (the amican users) are a bit jealous that from now on the
news and rumors are faster spread in Europe.  And maybe the support will be
better in Europe than in the US.  But unil April 94 it was the other way
round.  You got the news and the best support (remember CATS, we never had
such good support).  Now you're a bit away from the decisions.  Are this
the reasons for your paranoic now-the-world-is-going-under-mentality?  Do
you really think we Europeans (or we Germans) couldn't make the AMIGA a
success?  So you have to remember firms like MacroSystems (Draco,
WarpEngine...), phase 5 (Cybervision64, Cyberstorm, Blizzard, FastLane Z3
...) etc.  And remember: more than THREE million AMIGAs (maybe nearly 4)
were sold in Europe.  If there ever was an economic success of the AMIGA,
then it was totally european-made!

I personally think that ESCOM was the best what happened to AMIGA since
1990.  And they were the BEST choice at the auction.  Neither Alex Amor nor
David Pleasance had nearly as much financial power as ESCOM.  So be a
little more optimistic!  The AMIGA will be resurrected and new AMIGA-models
will (according to Dr.  Peter Kittel and others) have all the features that
made AMIGA successful.

Come on, you americans, relax!  Its going to be better, maybe better than
it ever was!

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