CompuServe Messages

Kevin: It seems that the systems people like Philips easily lose sight of their position in the ol' food chain. Systems providers, title developers (publishers) and consumers are very dependent on each other. As Philips has demonstrated, no systems vendor can simply plant a flag and claim to be the market leader, without support of the other two groups. Likewise no small group of consumers (or even large groups sometimes) will get what they want if the other two legs don't see a way to profit from the proposal. Philips' big problem right now is winning large-scale independent support from developers. Your statement that VIS dpends on MPC owners buying the VIS system too, is beside the point. The strength of VIS is that they have a leg to stand to win developer support, an area where Philips is weak. Both Philips and Tandy must then struggle to win substantial consumer support.