CompuServe Thread

Interesting. Here in the SF Bay Area, virtually all of the User Group members are unmitigated techhies (make that HACKERS, we have John Draper (Cap'n Crunch)), many of whom are employed by heavy-into-Amiga software houses like EA. Apparently, there was a pretty good crop of "early adopters" that pushed sales up to 35,000-40,000, but sales have fallen drastically since the first of the year due to *no software* (other than great games, etc) and the THUNDERING ABSENCE of the IBM hardware emulator. (Everyone seems agreed that the Transformer ain't gonna cut it for a serious IBM-land user). So sales by the software houses have been fairly good (EA must have easily made back their investment on Dpaint, and deservedly so), but the market seems to be flattening out for the less-thanspectacular offerings. I think (based on the Developers' meetings) that the Amiga is really pretty difficult to program spectacularly unless you have had previous experience with the complexities of a graphics/windowing environment (I'm sure that MACexperience is a GREAT help). This may at least partially explain why developers are having one hell of a time getting their wares to market. Meanwhile, the machine dies…. It's gonna be close, very close. Between C-A's business problems and the software vacuum and the still very flat non-IBM computer market (the Mac is on a downhill glide as well, and very little new software is being written for it), well, the Amiga is gonna have to really corner some specific areas (like CAD and music). -Larry-