#CBM Australia near death
28 messages in this thread
The following is an abstract of an article posted via the Newsbytes online news
service, which caters to industry news and trends.
—
In an article dated 11 Feb 1994, by Paul Zucker of Computer Daily
News, it was reported that Commodore Australia is precipitously close
to failure and is expected to be sold next week.
Max Donnelly, of the accounting firm Ferrier Hodgson was appointed
administrator of the company after the company directors deferred for
personal reasons. Donnelly commented that the company was unable to
service a bill due that day, despite AU$40M in sales for the last
year. The primary creditors are Commodore International and Westpac
Bank. All indications now are that the company will be sold in the
immediate future, but the overall implications of this sale on
Commodore as a whole are unclear at best. The article cited CBM Aus
MgDir Pat Byrne as a possible buyer.
In related commentary, IDC analyst Graham Penn attributed Commodore
Australia's problems to strong pushes into retail by the large-scale
PC manufacturers.
—
John W
They probably use PAL in Australia, too. Toasters are definitely good for C=
We certainly do :-). Though I haven't a toaster. I would be very sorry
to see the demise of C= in Aus having several up and working including
this A4000
Am I the only Amiga user on CIS in Aus?
MikeJ by AP on Amiga in Aus.
>> Am I the only Amiga user on CIS in Aus?
Nope …. I'm here as well, but I haven't seen many others.
Glav.
And me too!
Andrew Farrell Editor, Amiga Review
Well I think thats a total of about 3 of us….
Which will probably be a lot less in the next year or two judging how commodore
is going at the moment.
Glav.
Paul,
The Amiga fora are crawling with Australians! I can't go anywhere without
falling over a message from one of them.
Pete Jones, flying on AutoPilot from Brussels, Belgium
>> The Amiga fora are crawling with Australians! I can't go anywhere >>
without falling over a message from one of them.
I just haven't seen many of them I guess…..virtually everybody I speak to are
American, with the odd sprinkling of other countries. I've only seen a couple
of ozzies so far…
Glav.
I am another one (from Canberra) – IBM at work, AMIGA at home.
Wait for me !!!
There aren't many of us – maybe we should shout louder.
BRISBANE – AUSTRALIA – I think we're part of the world 🙂
–> Television is the fishbowl of Life.
Okay,
I'll own up. I'm here too.
Regards, Allan. Life is just a tyre swing
on AutoPilot, Sydney, Australia
Toasters only represent a small potential market. That's why the Amiga
has all but disappeared in the US scene, despite the Toaster's
success. In any case, Commodore has not given the US market what they
want most: Decent productivity software. Now that the average PC user
is beginning to therst for good multitasking and AV for their
applications, the Amiga is not up to the task of delivering what they
want. Instead, C= wasted their money on products like AmigaVision and
Caligari and advertising in Amiga publications. Commodore must have a
death-wish.
I didn't think Calagari was a Commodore product; it seemed like 3rd party to
me…
And the AmigaVision concept is the kind of thing which is multimedia…still
one of the hot buzzwords in the field 🙂
andy
Caligari (by Octree) was supported in the development phase by Commodore
for some time. As if we didn't already have a bazillion raytracers (okay,
maybe only half a dozen at the time).
And AmigaVision didn't start the concept of multimedia… The MSDOS
market did that. AmigaVision came needlessly in the wake of titles like
CanDo, Director and Ultracard. And before all of that, we were living
happily with the concept of Desktop Video.
-Chris
Just reading your messages re: CBM's lack of any effort for the amiga. I agree
with you.
Commodore has been so slow and pathetic in responding to any market directions
and especially their user base, that they deserve to die. I dearly love using
my A4000 and beleive it to be far superior than any PC's I use at work but I'm
stuffed if I'm going to donate my hard earned cash to a bunch of beaurocratic
fools who couldn't manage to blow their nose. Maybe it will be bought out by
someone who knows how to run a company. I know there are a couple of million
amiga users who could do a better job.
Glav.
What's with all those directors, or presidents at C= who kept rolling
in and out the revolving door? Come to think of it, who's running
the show now? Not Mehdi Ali, who sometimes appears more interested
in raking the company for what he can get. Did anyone else read that
editorial a couple of weeks ago in the Economist about shareholders
overturning the boards of directors of IBM, GM, etc.,
Okay, I admit that I'm confused. Who owns C=? Is it mostly held by
one terribly sorry person or is the misery spread out more? I wish
some disgruntled shareholders would stage a proxy fight. I'm just
afraid that the company doesn't even look worth taking over. How
terribly depressing. <B-{<
"CBM's not what it used to be/under the buttonwood tree"
> Okay, I admit that I'm confused. Who owns C=?
It's been infiltrated by IBM people who are using it as a management
testing ground 🙂
regards, Lu on AutoPilot downunder
>[CBM has] been infiltrated by IBM people who are using it as a management
testing ground 🙂
The way those director's fly in and out I'm not sure you're far from the truth.
-Vree
from 1.3 hell
>> What's with all those directors, or presidents at C= who kept rolling in >>
and out the revolving door? Come to think of it, who's running the show >>
now? Not Mehdi Ali,
Who knows….not anyone with any sense, thats for sure.
>> Okay, I admit that I'm confused. Who owns C=? Is it mostly held by one >>
terribly sorry person or is the misery spread out more? I wish some >>
disgruntled shareholders would stage a proxy fight.
You and 4 million other Amiga owners. I wish commodore could just run a
business. Something should be done soon. If commodore hasn't got the message by
now, they never will.
Glav.
Really ? I didn't know that; aside from answering technical questions I
wasn't aware of any special support for Caligari.
The first multimedia programs were not MSDOS, btw. Computing did not begin in
1983, contrary to what Microsoft wants people to think.
AmigaVision, IMHO, was an attempt to take the advice of people who wanted the
Amiga to be multimedia out of the box. It could have just as easily been
Director, I supposed. (Is the Ultracard you mention the one that Mike Lehman
did, btw ?)
andy
Also, Calagari is a 3D modelling and animation program. It's not a ray tracer
at all.
(at the time Calagari first was shown, there was one ray tracer
for the Amiga. Not that it matters, of course)
andy
" And AmigaVision didn't start the concept of multimedia… The MSDOS
market did that. AmigaVision came needlessly in the wake of titles like
CanDo, Director and Ultracard. And before all of that, we were living
happily with the concept of Desktop Video."
Whoa….you are way out of touch with this statement. The Amiga 1000
was able to do what the industry considers "Multimedia" right out of
the box, and there was software other than AmigaVision available way
before it's conception, The Director by the Right Answers Group comes
to mind. So don't try to tell me that the MSDOS crowd "invented"
Multimedia because it isn't so, and never was.
Isn't Gould a major stockholder of Westpac Bank?
wmc – via Autopilot!
"..Australia's problems to strong pushes into retail by the large-scale
PC.."
The beginning of the end for the PAL/European Amiga market. I'll
bet Commodore Intl. doesn't have any doubts about what effect
ignoring the US has now…
I'm not surprised that commodore Australia is in trouble they seem to have
a great deal of problems understanding that they need people to sell their
computer systems.
In Brisbane – Australia a city with a population of 1,300,000 people there
is only one recognised dealer that I am aware of.
The only other place you can purchase Amigas is through the retail chains
with a level of support, service and interest which is questionable to say
the least.
I have been a AMIGA owner for years and will stand by it until I'm blue in
the face, but it is getting harder and harder not to by an IBM and put up
with all the associated problems.
Maybe one option is for AMIGA owners to speak out – but who would listen?
I have been using the Amiga for video production as have a number of
companies I am associated with for many years. It is sad that most are
now turning away from the Amiga simply because that can not get the
support they need.
In addition the PC market is spending millions of dollars telling them how
good D Vision and products such as the Video Machine can be and they are
starting to believe what the advertisements say.
I bet that non of them have even heard of OPALVISION, TV Paint or EGS
because someone forgot to advise that they were available !! !! !!
I dont mean in Australian Commodore and Amiga Review – the bible of many
Amiga owner – but in the Mass Media and in the trade journals.
How about it Commodore – I'm sure there are enough video houses out there
in Australia to make the commercials !! !!
Get of your butt's and tell people what the AMIGA can do, because I want
to see the Amiga around for many years to come !!!!
–> Television is the fishbowl of Life.
In the Puget Sound are (Seatlle-Tacoma, Washington, USA. 2-5 million
people?).
We just lost another Amiga dealer, it appears. We only had four.
One just rents out of date titles and they fixed C64's (well renting is
illegal, they got around via some technicallity).
One is on a back road and determined to do business selling out of date
Amiga and C64 products, bought from other stores that went under.
One that I bought FinalWriter from that is 30 miles away. They're doing
PC's now. I guess that one copy of FW must have been the last Amiga thing
they purchased. Not a single Amiga in the store. I think these guys are
gone!
And the one remaining store, that's over 40 miles away from me, that is
doing well (they do PC compatables, too). People will take a trip (from
the other side of the state) and stay in town, overnight, just to shop at
this store. I think this is the only place you can walk in and buy an
Amiga around here. I haven't been there for a couple months though…
Commodore has not been true to the Amiga concept. They were so far ahead
but, now, PC's are catching up. Plus, MS, IBM, MAC, have the market base,
they have the capital (really MS has the biggest budget, in the PC world
I'm sure). Commodore is really gonna have to pull some magic (I know they
have in the past) to keep alive now.
I'd rather use my old 2000 (considerably altered) than a Compaq Pentium
running Windows! The Compaqs are pretty darn fast but, Windows sucks. I
thought too many Amiga programs behaved irrationally! Now, after switching
from OS/2 to Windows, at work, I just can't believe how many times those
da** machines lock up!
Enough. I'm rattling. Again!
Robb
Hey, Robb….I'm from Seattle, Besides Butler Computer in Federal Way and
the one on the Bothel-Everett Highway (Computer Concepts I think?) what
are the other Amiga Stores you Know about?
Bob
Seattle rookie with alot of potential.
Bob,
Butler is the one that looks like it's dropping Amiga, by the appearance
they showed when I bought FinalWriter there, on monday.
The best store I know of is Nybbles-N-Bytes' in Tacoma. Off the I-5
38th(?) street exit turn left into the mall but before you get to the
Tacoma mall they're on the right, up a 20 foot incline, in a small strip
mall.
Where's this Bothel-Everett Highway (Computer Concepts?? That sounds real
familiar?) ? Other than on the Bothel-Everett Highway which I'm not
(blush) familiar with. Running real wild here, I'd guess it was up north
(from me) between Bothel and Everett.
Robb
PS. Did you get back to me on those local BBS's? I dunno, you probably did
and I filed them in offline storage…