#Selling the Amiga
19 messages in this thread
I've seen software in all those fields for the Amiga. I have no idea how
"good" it is. Define "good". Better yet, define "good enough". There is
plenty of this kind of software out there which is "good enough". If you
think that only something like Excel is "good", then tell me how many
users make use of even 20% of Excel's feature set? Everything plus the
Kitchen Sink makes for a nice, glitzy product, but how many people really
*need* that?
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
Well, yes I do define "good" as software of the caliber of Excel,
Word, PageMaker, for example. And, yes, I do make use of all these
packages and use substantially more than 20% of their features. I also
find that many installations which use these packages either on Mac or PC
platforms use them extensively. I don't, however, believe that EVERY pc
user needs the power of these packages, but I do believe that unless
software of that caliber is available, then the platform is lacking what is
needed to make it attractive to a substantial user base other than the home
or casual user, who likely doesn't make use of them on any platform. They
are, however, the type of software that makes the platform attractive and
helps to create demand for it in a large marketplace, namely business
users. Not every computer user needs the most expensive and most powerful
software, but the caliber of software more or less defines the caliber of
the platform. It is what makes the PC and the Mac the market leaders. Its
lack is what makes the Amiga NOT a market leader.
Lets be realistic for a second here… Lets just say, for example, that
tommorrow, Microsoft suddenly releases Microsoft Word for Amiga and
Microsoft Excel for Amiga. What do you thing would happen? I'll tell you:
A big flop.
Oh sure, they'll sell it to a miniscule percentage of the Amiga market, but
they'd be lucky to recoup support costs, much less advertising and
development costs. Why? Because both products are aimed at big business.
The Amiga market is distributed mostly in the home market, and a few niches
such as video and multimedia. How many people can afford to buy Microsoft
Word for the price it's selling in the IBM or Mac markets? Heck, for the
*upgrade* cost of Word 4 to Word 5 on the Mac, I could get an acceptable,
but not as feature rich or name-brand recognizable, word processor for the
Amiga. Faced with that kind of pricing, which word processor do you think
Amiga owners would be more likely to buy?
You don't jump into a market like that headfirst. You do it gradually. The
Amiga has to do it even more gradually than most, because it's low price
has made it much more attractive to home users than it might have been
otherwise, and that segment of the market has *got* to be able to find
lower cost software than what is available in the Mac and PC worlds. So
what you do is start with what we have and expand slowly.
We'll get there eventually.
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
I think in some senses you're quite right. But at the margin MS
has a support staff and already embedded costs to support their other
products. True the market may be limited at first, but then it was limited
for the Mac. Consider, that the Mac's installed base is not nearly the size
of the PC market and was much smaller than the Amiga market when Word was
around. However, even were we to concede all of your points, that doesn't
excuse the relatively feature-poor and shoddy group of non-graphic software
presently available for the Amiga. Given that the technology for producing
high quality software doesn't have to be reinvented for the Amiga. For
example, I've been a user and supporter of ProWrite since it was first
released, yet through all of its subsequent releases it is barely much
different from the earliest release. By the time MS Word had been through
version 3 on the Mac it had become one of the best (in my personal opinion
it is the best) wordprocessor on the market. Yet none of the Amiga
wordprocessors today possess the quality or features of the first version
of Word. Now, when Word first became available on the Mac, the Mac's
installed base was not any greater than the Amiga's installed base today.
In fact, many Mac programs were in a similar situation, market-wise, when
they first emerged. The first Excel was more than the then current Lotus
1-2-3. The best Amiga spreadsheet is roughly equivalent to Lotus 1.0,
which has been out of existence for almost as many years as the Amiga has
been around (well almost.) I understand the ramifications of the market
for the Amiga, I know it's not been renown for high cost software, but I
would stand by my original thoughts that that is more the developer's
problem than the market's
I honestly can't comment too well on Amiga word processor capabilities, as
I rarely use one. But I *can* comment on Word for the Mac? You actually
used the first version of this? I did. I went back to using the copy of
MacWrite we got with our original 128K Mac, as it was much better than
Word. As far as I recall, it wasn't until Word 3.0 for the Mac came out
that the product was any good. (Bennett's 1st law of Microsoft – Any
Microsoft product with a version number of less than 3 is worthless.
Bennett's 2nd law of Microsoft – Any Microsoft product up until 1990 with
a revision number of .0 or .00 has too many bugs to be useful. After
1990, .00 followed by a letter, like .00a is acceptable in place of a .01
or the like… <evil grin>)
I don't know for sure, but is there an Amiga word processor out there at
least as good as the original version of MacWrite?
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
Well, I would disagree, but that's more likely going to result in a
personal disagreement. However, I do believe that the better
wordprocessors on the Amiga are at least as good as MacWrite except for
font usage. I'm really unhappy with the lack of true font integration in
Amiga wordprocessors. FinalCopy is in many ways much better with fonts that
ProWrite, but uses its own proprietary fonts. ProWrite on the other hand
still hasn't gotten fonts down right since the emergence of Dos 2.x.
Desktop publishing is fairly good, but have many major failings compared
with Ventura and Pagemaker.
"except for font usage"
Unfortunately, that's a very, very, *very* important part. 🙁
One of the things I'll never understand is why C= didn't bite the bullet
and license Postscript instead of these godawful Comugraphic thingy.
Loyd
Loyd,
What leads you to the conclusion that Intellefont is 'godawful'?
Trying to glean enough information to program using them vs. the ease with
which I was able to get info (and implement) Adobe support.
But the main point is that Adobe is real-world industry standard in
printing/publishing. The only places I know still using Compugraphics are
ancient dinosaurs that will be out of business soon . . .
Loyd
Probably for the same reason that Apple and MicroSloth didn't — it would
likely have added $500 to the price of the machine. Adobe can be
over-greedy — going with Adobe fonts would have required the use of
PostScript as the display system (NOT cheap!). Would also have played holy
hell with downward compatibility, no?
Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
Hopefully sparing the wallet some bruising…:^)
Steve,
I would buy Excel tommorow if it were available for the Amiga,
Peachtree also, AutoSketch and a few others but there is nothing
comparable in our market. Think of all the fledgling video companies that
are coming out now thanx to the low cost the amiga (and toaster), that
could set thier entire business up on amigas but as it is now, unless they
are hackers at heart they have to buy amiga AND clones. And that is a
shame.
…Steve
On AutoPilot! (at last)
You might buy Excel tomorrow. I wouldn't buy it until the first revision
was out. The majority of Amiga owners probably A) couldn't afford it, or
B) If they could afford it, they'd need to get a hard disk and more ram to
run it first.
Mind you, I'd be thrilled if Excel, or something of that same level, came
out for the Amiga. But until the business market on the Amiga gets larger
(which it will as long as Amiga's are selling well in ANY market… Macs
got into business because of one big niche, Desktop Publishing, and
because Mac fanatics started bringing them in on their own, NOT because
they had all the popular packages, because they *didn't* at the time.) you
probably won't see it happen.
–>Steve Bennett
When you start PowerSnap you will be presented with a window where
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at any time by using PowerSnap's hotkey (ctrl alt p, or whatever
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program.
How big does it have to be? Superbase Pro from what I understand does
very well, so does Final Copy and Pro-Write. Superbase is a >$300.00
product. I know some of the DOS dbases go for well over that but it does
show that we are willing to pay a decent price for decent software. I too
am not a video person and was sold on the amy early on for the
multitasking and display, and have been waiting for 4 years for some power
to fuel this amazing computer I have that is so under utilized. If I had
known then what I know now (about the s/w availabilty) I would have went
the clone route, but as it is now I have to much invested to change
platforms now, so I wait. (and b%@ch).
…Steve
On AutoPilot! (at last)
Steve,
IMO, we should have had Fractal Design Painter first. That's a WAY cool
application!
Malcolm
Steve,
Isn't it up to the software _buyers_ to define "good enough," rather than
the developers?
Different users use a different 20% of Excel's feature set. It's the
total capabilities that make it desirable.
David
Actually, software buyers do indeed define "good enough", by buying those
packages which have the features they want, and making requests of the
software people for additional features which aren't available but they
need or would really like. The majority of the most used features are
actually included in many of these packages. The way to get more is to buy
the packages and ask for improvements. Without that kind of feedback, the
improvements never arise.
It's one thing to say "I need all the features in Excel to do the job." But
just saying that isn't likely to get you anywhere – Excel didn't get that
way overnight. People bought early versions, told Microsoft what they
wanted, and Microsoft improved it, and there was more feedback and
Microsoft improved it again. The best way to get what you want is to buy
what is available *now*, and then push for improvement. If the market
shows they want it, they usually get it in the end.
–>Steve Bennett
Steve:
You make an important point. How can Amiga developers be expected to
improve their products when Amiga users won't buy an early version because
"it doesn't do what Excel/WordPerfect/Lotus does"? How can this market
ever grow if we won't support and nourish it?
We have to face the facts here. MS-DOS and Mac markets are much bigger
than the Amiga's. That means a lot more resources and money are devoted
to software development for those platforms. That translates to more
powerful softare in a shorter amount of time. If we want the Amiga to
have the same caliber of software, we have to be patient and support the
developers who support the Amiga (and force all people who pirate Amiga
software to buy another PC). If we expect developers to have a perfect,
do-everything product on the first release, then we're gonna lose a lot
more of them to the other guys. Until we have companies that can afford
to invest serious money and resources in Amiga software development, it's
gonna take a lot longer.
The other, more dreary side of this coin is that there remains some
serious holes in the Amiga's software base after seven years. There are
also some products in their second, third, and fourth release that aren't
up to par. We're loosing users because of this, and something has to be
done to reverse this trend.
Wayne Steele
Saving $ with AutoPilot
Except with the Amiga, we get some really bad software sometimes… Word
gets around, people don't buy it, then the company's next product is even
worse, because they say sales of the first product were so bad they can't
put much money into development. Then the second, even cheezier product
fails, and the company drops Amiga development completely.
Sigh.
Hey, we get some really bad software on ALL machines. In fact, I'd say we
probably get a larger percentage of bad software on IBM and Mac because
everyone's trying to make a quick buck in those markets, and the market is
so large that even bad software can usually sell enough to keep companies
afloat, generating even more bad software in turn.
In the Amiga market, bad software doesn't usually sell enough to keep a
company afloat very long. Alas, even here we get some companies who do
well even with bad software because nobody else is even competing in the
niche… <sigh> Still, as long as there are programmers who like the
machine, software will keep coming out, and eventually things will get
better and more sophisticated. Me, I honestly hope it doesn't happen too
fast, lest software prices go the way of Mac and IBM prices: too high.
–>Steve Bennett