#Amiga not dead!
39 messages in this thread
I think our troubles may be coming to an end. This from a UK contact who met
with Commodore UK today…
"Expect an official announcement at the end of this week, but a buyer has
definitely been found. Commodore UK are definitely still in business, are
extremely upbeat about the future of the amiga computers, and are actively
encouraging the development of new titles for the whole range.
It seems that the (as yet) mystery buyer will continue the marketing and
development of the Amiga line, and not just use the technology for interactive
cable TV."
The best thing to come out of all of this is the demise of Commodore US – they
were the millstone round the neck of the entire operation. The European
entertainment market was where most of the money was made – perhaps if the same
approach had been used in the US this mess would not have occurred? I don't
think Commodore ever had a chance of persuading mainstream buisness to switch
from using PCs.
Mal
While the entertainment market is definitely important, I hope no one
picks up the Amiga and then abandons the
video/graphics/business/productivity/everything-else market! For me that
would be like having no Amiga at all, since I don't play much in the way
of games.
Paul
Paul,
The Amiga was originally designed to play games – It just happens that high
quality graphics and sound are also useful (understatement) in the video world.
Anyhow, its the third party developers that have exploited the Amiga's
potential in these other areas – Commodore could never take any credit for
opening up these markets!
As long as the development of the Amiga line always means making great
computers and not just CD32, then we should all be happy.
Mal
"The best thing to come out of all of this is the demise of Commodore US-
they were the millstone round the neck of the entire operation."
So, where do you think the engineers behind the Amiga are from. What of
their efforts?
The real millstone was Mehdi Ali, IMNSHO.
Sp >>So, where do you think the engineers behind the Amiga are from. What
of their efforts?<<
It think he was referring to the US marketing & sales division, and not
the separate R&D division.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
Ron,
I can not remember there ever being a "US marketing & sales division". It
they really did exist, they must have been based out of Nassau too.
-sja
CBM was exactly that and nothing more (though perhaps something less) for
a long time.
—
Dale L. Larson, Intangible Assets Manufacturing
SA >>I can not remember there ever being a "US marketing & sales
division".<<
I mean the division, or subsituary, that was responsible for the US market
(under whatever name it used).
From my understanding, there were 35 separate Commodore 'companies'. A
handful of these separate companies operated out of the same building in
West Chester. I even heard Dave Haynie, has worked at four or five
different Commodore companies without ever leaving his desk. (What was
the name of the division Haynie worked for, 'CISCO'?
When users talk of the CBM-US, I think of the just US-subsituary, not the
international hardware divisions, or the international software divisions
that were located in the US.
Maybe, I'm splitting hairs, maybe I'm outright wrong.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasels aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
You are correct. Commodore International Services Corporation was the
subsideary including engineering and CATS and some other departments (at
least, it was for a few years until October). CBM was just the US sales
company. Lots of other companies did lots of other things.
—
Dale L. Larson, Intangible Assets Manufacturing
Steve,
Don't worry, I'm not knocking the good ol' US of A, but when it comes to
selling Amigas and actually making some money, I don't think Commodore US would
get many awards!
Mal
Oh, I'm not worried about you knocking the US. I just don't want you
throwing the engineers into the same pot as the marketing and sales people
(if they really existed) in the US. Remember you need to make reasonable
machines before you can sell 'em anywhere, and that's who did.
One of the guys from A.C.E. (Amiga Centres for Excellence) met with IDI folks
today and confirmed basically the same thing.
We were told that Philips offered a *lot* of money for CD32 and wanted to bury
it. They were turned down and it was sold to someone else. Why bury it?
According to Dataquest, Philips has a 0.75% market share in the U.K. for CD-ROM
based game/interactive systems while Commodore has a 48% share. There are
similar numbers in other European countries.
Samsung, again, is what I am being told is a "done deal" with just some paper
work to iron out. Look for info after end of day Friday.
-Chas
If that rumor is true and Philips wanted to bury it I wonder what they're
afraid of? Are they telling me I made a good decision in buying the cd32
over cdi? Whoever owns cd32 now should have a commercial telling the
public what Philips tried to do so people will buy the better product
and bury cdi.
I'm Dutch, Philips is Dutch. Philips had som' good inventions over the years:
VCC, CD, Musiccassette, Digital compactcassette. But I DON'T LIKE CDi! It is a
really lousy way to get people to use a computer-like machine. I hope they
won't sell a single more CDi-player.
And now that I'm hearing this story about Philips trying to bury CD32 now I'm
really ashamed to be Dutch! 🙁
MaRiO. -= MoToRoLa RuLeZ, InTeL FooLZ! =- ///
68o2o aGa OnBoarD …///\\\///
Mario,
Umm… from what I've heard, I don't think that Philips wants to BURY the CD32.
Rather, they want to BUY the CD32 and make that into the next generation CD-I.
It makes sense. The market is still viable and the techology could be
purchased at a very low, low price. At least in comparison to doing more R&D
for the original CD-I platform.
Regards,
John Chang
Technical Support Manager
Scala, Inc.
John-
I would think that would be a real problem. I mean, imagine the
compatability issues.
Paul
Paul,
Of course compatibility would be an issue. We'll just have to see what the
market wants and is it willing to buy?
Regards,
John Chang
Technical Support Manager
Scala, Inc.
Mario,
As a 3rd generation decendent of Dutch immigrants…I'd like to encourage you
to hold your head high. As my Beppa used to tell me…If you ain't Dutch…You
ain't Much.
Later, Jim Broek
Thanks, Jim. I'll keep that in mind!
-Mario- 🙂
You really think that the Digital Compact cassette was a good invention?
Greg
It wasn't bad, considering. I'd rather have pcm than adaptive coding, and
I'd rather have a CD-size disc with pcm, though not actually a CD since
the optical tracking alignment would be too expensive, but that would be
too expensive for now.
Paul
"It wasn't bad, considering"
Considering what? Considering that there is a format available out there
that is tried and tested and of a far superior quality. DAT. DAT machines
are priced at the moment for professional use only but if the big playeers
wanted to introduce it to the consumer it would probably be cheaper than
DCC.
MiniDisk and DCC have come in for some severe criticism from the recording
industry because they are a step backwards in quality compared to existing
formats. IMHO both these new formats seem to be aimed at making a fast
buck from an unsuspecting public.
Greg
>> You really think that the Digital Compact cassette was a good
>> invention?
I never thought it was all DAT.
-Mitch
If you can give me an alternative for it, be my guest! (and don't say
'minidisk', because they don't have the quality DCC has, and don't say 'DAT'
either, because that one's not comparable considering prizes).
-Mario- "DiGiTaL FreaK"
Why not say DAT, if DAT machines were manufactured for the mass market
instead of for the exclusive use of the professional market they would
actually be cheaper than MiniDisk or DCC. Even some of the professional
DAT machines are only marginally more expensive than the consumer DCC and
MiniDisk.
Greg
Don't get me wrong: DAT is MUCH better then DCC (with it's stupid compression
techniques) but I won't believe DAT-prizes come even close to those of DCC.
🙂
-MaRiO-
>> Look for info after end of day Friday. <<
Well duh! <G>
Matt Straney, 3 hours late, without your luggage
from Grand Ledge — on AutoPilot ——–>
Hi Matt,
>> >> Look for info after end of day Friday. <<
>>
>> Well duh! <G>
O.K… just for fun, I'll throw in my guess… <grin>
Being curious, I checked out some time cluster information from Advanceg GET
sofware, based upon Commodore's past stock quotes…
I'm looking for a significant announcement to made on the
24th or 25th of May… The next set of significant clusters
occur at about the end of June (several, but not as significant
as the clustering around the 24th & 25th).
(For what it's worth, since Commodore is not speaking…)
– Dave
Chas,
I here rumours from Gatesworld (sorry – the land of the PC) that Philips and
others are planning to introduce internal CD-i drives for PCs. CD-i has been a
complete failure, as your figures show, but a PC add-on would boost their
market share considerably. The CD-i machine deserves to be bundled up with the
sega CD and dropped in the bin marked "expensive failures"!
Now, a CD32 add-on would be something else entirely…
Mal
Charles,
Your message it close to word perfect of the latest info that I've been
given.
Greg
I hope your right, there was suppossed to be a announcement last week too.
Richard -> AutoPilot on the A1000
Richard
I hope I'm right too – my income depends entirely on CD32 at the moment! I'm
not one for deliberate rumourmongering, but this did come from Commodore UK
(who must be active because they're making a CD for me now!).
Mal
Thats because C LTd never understood the importants of bridge technology,
especially in the Amiga early years, the importants of the educational
market, or the importants of treating dealers well, and training and
assisting them in how to promote the product on a local level.
Had they pushed the BB technology as fast as the clones (i.e. DOX and CPU
upgrades, plus companion multi function cards for the PC slots) aided with
tech assistance, devleopment funds and marketting assistance projects like
the Emplant, then there would have been more "serious" users of the Amiga.
As it stands, with DSP and RTG, and PhotoCD added, the Amiga even makes a
very fine and cost-effective alternative to Macs and PCs for photoimaging
operations. There are still large niche markets for the AMiga, but that
pre-supposes a marketing company that understands the product they have,
how to aid and recruit dealers, how to aid asn support developers and how
to ADVERTTISE!!!!
Tall order….
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
I agree the Amiga makes a superb all round computer, but the PC is well
established now, and the size of the Amiga operation is on a par with just one
of the well known PC builders – there will never be the resources to take over
the business market.
Most business people know nothing about computers and many are wary of the
technology, so they will go for tried and trusted solutions i.e. a PC straight
from the box, preloaded and configured with their required software. They
certainly don't want to be messing with bridgeboards and various other add ons
to turn their new computer into a different model they could have easily bought
instead.
We will have to accept that the Amiga will only ever find niche markets, and
concentrate on developing these, rather than wasting money taking on Bill Gates
& co. (The Commodore PC and an obsession with the 'serious' computer were the
main reasons for Commodore's downfall)
Mal
In the U.S. there was no obsession with anything. Every time CBM spoke it
was quite clear that there was no understanding of the machine.
THe time for bridge tech passed by. In '87, the Amiga could have focused
on it and be where the Mac is today. Ports of many "business" programs to
the Amiga as there is to the Mac.
Today, the Mac and PC are invading all the Amiga niche markets en masse.
For the Amiga to survice it needs to develop conversions for quicktime,
AVI, WAV, RDI, !MV and other WInd/O/S2/Mac Multi-Media and video formats.
Otherwise, with the exception of the Flyer, you can kiss the Amiga
good-bye in MM and Video within 2 years even if the lines start up again.
And extra protection comes in the form of transferrability of some
"business" related data between Amiga and "mainstream apps". So at least
current I/O filters for WP, MSW, Lotus, excell, Access, Paradox, would
help the Amiga's life span in the professional world.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne
If you want to use QuickTime, AVI, etc you may as well buy a PC/MAC and forget
about the Amiga. There is no point in the Amigas existance if it is to run the
same programs as the other machines. All these multimedia formats you mention
have been designed around the limitations of the PC and in most cases by those
'programmers' employed by Microsoft. Have you seen a program using Quicktime
movies? The quality of playback is usually pretty abysmal. I'm currently
converting such a product from Mac to CD32, and although I was given the
quicktime movies it used, and could have done a very quick conversion, I'm
taking the time to resample all the video to get a decent picture quality.
If the Amiga cannot compete as an alternative platform to the PC and Mac in
the multimedia market, running better (and therefore incompatible) software,
then R&D and marketing money would be better spent developing the entertainment
side of the market where the Amiga has traditionally done the best.
Mal
Did you see all those PC-guys drool over all these MOD-files? I personally
think they sound better on their homefront: the Amiga!
MaRiO. -= MoToRoLa RuLeZ, InTeL FooLZ! =- ///
68o2o aGa OnBoarD …///\\\///
YEP! Read also my story in the thread "Samsung buys Amiga", it features the
same positive energy and it came off the Internet. 🙂
MaRiO. -= MoToRoLa RuLeZ, InTeL FooLZ! =- ///
68o2o aGa OnBoarD …///\\\///