CompuServe Messages

If I have something to contribute – such as my opinion of CATs, which I already provided – I will. It helps if you ask specific questions; as long as they don't infringe on nondisclosure areas or put me in the position of specifically pointing fingers, I'll be happy to help you. One thing you might be interested to know is that I think we've got very little time left during which CBM can continue to market the Amiga in the manner it has been. In the last few months, I've seen a 486/25 "push over" an Amiga 3000 on my wife's desk primarily in order to use two applications: Quicken and Quattro Pro. Her comments now that she's been using it a while are basically "better reliability and more features" (under Windows). You should understand that she's a dedicated Amiga-person and well aware of the architectural advantages the Amiga has; she's also well aware that the applications are not there, do not appear to ever be coming, that CBM's track record is "dismal" (her word) and that her time is worth more than CBM has paid in attention to her as a user. Aside from Anne's opinions, I have my own; and I think that serious, even critical mistakes have been made in the OS – specifically no VM, and gfx retargetability getting a major back seat such that it's STILL not here – which have resulted in applications crippling around when compared to how similar apps operate on other machines. Another VERY bad mistake has been the limitation of the release of the new OS (3.0) for 4000/1200 class machines only – they've made certain that applications will be developed much more slowly for the 3.0 release, which is a shame as it's a better OS. But this is typical – same thing they did with 2.0; and yes, I'm sure that 3.0 can run on "other" Amiga hardware. The CDTV licensing fiasco is a recent example of a problem where CBM misuderstands the developer resource-base; the raise in royalties stopped three projects that I know of cold, and substantially changed the nature of a fourth. Where are the Amiga dealers? I went to Chicago a few weeks ago, none in the phone book. Went to a Software ETC, 14 vertical shelf-racks of dos/windows stuff, two shelf-racks of Mac stuff, no Amiga. Asked about it – "We sent all our Amiga stuff to the ETC store in (suburb name, instantly forgettable, too far to go for a visitor)." I lay the blame for this at CBM's feet, and rampant mailorder discounting to a level where service (dealer service) isn't practical at competitive prices – which CBM could have controlled if they'd wanted to. I said a month or so ago that it looked to me like the writing was on the wall; I still think so. I can only hope that the 1200 will do something special in the Amiga market… but I can't imagine how it could pull out of the slump with only graphics as a professional application for the machine, when windows machines are rising up with $149 24-bit gfx boards, PhotoShop, etc. Those are some of my concerns; if you can get CBM to listen to you by sugar-coating them, feel free. Quote me or not, as you please. –Ben …via AutoPilot