CompuServe Messages

You might know more about this than I would, so correct me if I'm wrong (and for once I'm NOT being flippant), but it looks to me like Commodore isn't interested in the "usual" PC market at all (business applications like Quicken and Quattro Pro): With the development of the AGA chipset it seems to me that they're only looking at the pro-video market for the 4000 and the Sega Genesis market with the 1200; and why would CBM — especially at this late date, with all the battles they'd fought with Jay Miner and crew — even WANT to say "Me Too" to the PC Industry, which is currently so busy with throat-cutting in the marketplace that it isn't a safe bet to be a dealer for ANYONE's product right now (largely because of the big New York mail-order discount houses, who sell more PCs than anything else). There's also a real good probability that Microsoft is hogging the PC- software market right now: Why would Commodore want to pay Bill Gates major moolah for "Windows Compatibility"? (And although I have but passing familiarity with Windows — I've thrown it out of every computer I've had to run "serious" applications on — I've never heard of Windows doing any of the advanced tricks that Arexx lets us do.) And, true, there's only one Chicago Amiga dealer (Software Plus, on the NE corner of Lincoln & Peterson), and CBM (1-800-66-AMIGA) didn't know where she was (maybe this is why the Amiga US sales staff got axed?); but I found the store, and you could have too if you'd looked in the Yellow Pages Consumer Book (were you looking in the YP Business Book by chance?). The store often "looks like a teenager's room" (no Silo Superstore this), but this is because Carol tries to carry a little bit of everything — and her customers know this and we keep coming in to buy various Amiga tidbits (including an astonishing assortment of Amiga-specific magazines) — and so the store is more warehouse than showroom; but I'd rather see clutter from someone who cares than a sparkling showroom run by idiots. (IMHO.) And, besides, everybody makes mistakes: For software as excellent as Lightwave 3D was supposed to be, I've heard it argued that NewTek "made a serious mistake" in not offering it independently of the Toaster; well, now, supposedly, NewTek is changing that policy: Maybe it's not too late for Commodore to see the light?…