Title :Will the REAL Commodore... | Electronic Arcs By :Ron Schultz | Volume 1, Number 3 Filename :Articles1 | (c) 1987, Brad Grier & Authors --------------------------------------------------------------------- As we all know by now, the "Amiga by Commodore" is definitely the hottest, most capable machine in the reach of the masses. It has the greatest potential, the greatest future, and yet more Macs are sold every 3 months than Amigas have sold in over 2 years. Why? I remember the day I heard of Tramiel leaving Commodore. I almost cried. Something in my bones told me that Commodore's soul was leaving, along with plenty of its "meat", the engineers that made the 520ST in just (3-6) months. It's just like today hearing of Philippe Kahn leaving Borland! Unfortunately my hunch turned out to be all to true. Commodore, with all its resources, almost sunk. At the same time Atari paid off its huge debts and thrived. Well, they finally got rid of that "old" (pardon the term) guy that was the head, and Rattigan took over. I thanked Commodore's lucky stars. I kept hearing the name "Irving Gould" now and then, and kept wondering what yet another "old" guy could be doing at Commodore...still. Now I just read a little section in the newspaper about Commodore posting a $60 million debt with Prudential. What!?! I thought we were past the debt stage! It turns out the little announcement was followed by the news that Dan Rattigan had left the company. Oh-oh. Tell me, what does Gould's (now head of Commodore Business Machines) experience in Australia have to do with the completely different (and much more important) situation here in America? He competed with MSX over there... Ah, the Amiga was made with the future in mind. Why, they just recently hooked up a high-resolution (1XXX x 1XXX) monitor to the Amiga, and lo and behold, changed just a few variables in the OS and it worked without a glitch! That's planning. Or is it? Now I find out that the 'lowley' (tech-wise) Mac has a 32-bit data path. And the Amiga? 16-bit data path. You can get 68020/68881 upgrades for both computers. Which one will go faster then? You got it. The "closed" Mac. I suggest that Commodore begin to look at Apple. The best Amiga engineers are already there, it must have something good about it, eh? (Maybe Amiga owners don't know of the following company, but it has been a major player in the software market. Ever heard of print-shop? They were developing it for the Amiga.) A Broderbund person reminisces about the 'old' Apple days: You could get up and ask "Who's in charge?" and everyone would shout back "I am!" Now you do the same thing and they (now wearing pin-stripes and wings) say "You are!" (as in John Sculley. Head Honcho at Apple.) Broderbund remembers when dealing with Apple was like dealing with two completely different companies. Each had it's own R&D department, each had its own marketing division... There was intense competition, almost hatred between the groups. Dealing with Apple was like dealing with a "group" (read: committee.) Everything was grossly inefficient. Could Commodore be the same? [And worse yet: Not improving?] You ask "Who's in charge?" They answer "We don't know!" (They're not sure who the latest president is...) Everything that's developed (in a grossly inefficient way) is developed twice! Transformer and SideCar, two separate, completely different philosophies, and no interaction between the two groups to ease the job, or at least the cost. Amiga 2000 in Los Gatos, Amiga 2000 in Germany. Intense competition between the two groups, and their problems are further compounded by their being literally "Oceans apart!" New "Fat Agnes" chip developed. Probably won't be used because a much less expensive, and more reliable answer is available -just like the Los Gatos engineers said so a long time before. The Amiga 500 has taken a precious amount of money (that could have been used to advertise instead) to develop, when the Los Gatos engineers proposed a much simpler 'shrinking' and more efficient production of the A-1000 as the answer. It would have cost a lot less to develop, and would also had only a +/- $30 difference with the A-500 to produce. We shall now see what Apple has done, and is doing, to draw some parallels. The two divisions are now merged into one. Great savings have been achieved. Employee benefits are lowered. Unused production plants are closed down. And even though Apple's sales were down, in the '85/'86 report their profits were up by 25%. They had had tremendous internal strife, which resulted in Steve Jobs leaving the company. With him went Apple's finest. (Including the developer of the 'Super Mac'. But a 'little' guy had secretly been working on this other project which Apple now found out about and turned into the mighty Mac II.) But without the best, at least now John Sculley had control... enough of it to give Apple a turn for the good. And what a turn. People are predicting Apple could surpass IBM as the market leader by next year! They lost their 'Avante-Garde' you say? My friend... Tell me if Mac II isn't high tech?! What made the difference? Someone who could take control, and had the guts to oust the 'other' guy. -And, he knew what he was doing. It's about time Commodore got someone like that. Dan Rattigan (from Pepsi...like Sculley) was probably the answer. But we've got these old fogies there who want to make money, that's all. No incentive to be the market leader. Inefficient as Russia when it comes down to the nitty gritty. (Oh, sorry. Russia is more efficient than Commodore when it comes to their technology program...) Who will oust these 'oldies' and give us a true 'numbers man' who can make profits, not just hi- tech computers that don't sell because of the 'old fogies' and their marketing campaigns, and their... How about someone that can copy Apple (which is copying Japan, Inc., which did what U.S. business-men told it to do) and introduce 'just in time' production? No more ware- houses full of transformer drives! Or how about direct ties with the world-wide network of user groups, so that another Mac (or Amiga 1000) isn't introduced without slots, too little memory, Dos too slow, etc., thanks to the input from these groups. Someone that can head Commodore, and incite unity, not rivalry, and know what the 'whole picture' is, not just what the separate 8-bit (64, 128...) and 16-bit (Amiga) divisions have to say. How about someone that takes advantage of opportunities, like the hackers that are offering to rewrite AmigaDos in Assembly Language, replacing the old BCPL/C hybrid. And for free! Or how about someone that lets the 'hardware guys' sit in the 'future-sessions' and give some REAL input into the subject, such as the specs for future computers -and whether they're possible, or at least feasible. How about even listening to your engineers? The Amiga 500 and 2000 problems are due to that fact. Los Gatos only wanted two IBM slots in the 2000 to reduce heat/noise problems. Nope. Germany could finish the 2000 faster, and with more IBM slots. Uh-huh. Now we're hung up with the FCC (even CSA!) and the Los Gatos version could at least have been out -or are they completely redesigning the 2000 (as they did with GenLock and A-live several times) just because they find they didn't plan decently, and now need 32-bit data paths, an MMU, or room for the 1024x1024 (Agnes) chip that's ready and waiting to be used. That would take much longer than the two 1/2 years we waited for Genlock and A-live to be released. With things changing fast as they are a new Commodore computer would always be out-dated as soon as it's ready, and with their philosophy they would never get a product out, since they would have to 'redesign' it again. Maybe they could try to re-hire their FCC experts with the money they save listening to their engineers just once. Maybe even (hope against hope...) their now-at- Apple Amiga engineers could come back? Give them a reason to stay (get things done right) or maybe the few Commodore has left -if they're not incompetents- will join Apple or Atari also. LISTEN to them, they make what you depend on to survive! They may not know business (according to you, Commodore execs -but remember they have a better track record than you do with the same Amiga!) but they know what Apple and IBM and Atari don't want the world to know... and that's how much better the Amiga could be than their computers... If only the management knew what to do with it. [ie. First Commodore advertised in Time and Newsweek, calling the Amiga a 'business' computer but showing students, 'bright' students in the ads. Now they completely change and introduce the A-500 for the family. Or they don't know what the Amiga is and make their TV ads about that to advertise their incompetence. Now they've given up and don't advertise at all! Oh, they have announced the Amiga is the perfect desk-top publishing computer. That was a few months ago. The software isn't out, and a monitor that flickers doesn't help either...] Don't announce your computers until they are ready and done... and passed by FCC. IBM announced new computers and delivered. Apple announced new computers and delivered. Commodore announced new computers and... and what? Where are they!?! Come-on! This 'someone' Commodore needs needn't be perfect. Remember Tramiel's +/4? Or C-16? Or... They would just have to get control, but at the same time know what they are doing. And this someone doesn't have to be a person. All it has to be is a group of competents that gets together, presents a united front to the 'world', and gets things done -right. (Are you out there, 'someone'? Are you listening?) Could Commodore's massive lay-offs help it like it helped Apple? Most certainly, especially if they know how to take advantage of it and not sink the savings into needless development of chips they don't use and Amiga 500's that could have been done less expensively. Why, many times answers to problems are not found by throwing money at the problem, they're found by good 'ole... thinking. Apple and Commodore lost their best to other companies. Apple's got good people now, from top to bottom. Commodore lost people first to Atari when Tramiel left, (from managers to engineers) and now again to Apple with the layoffs. [And you lay off what you don't need, not what you definitely need: like R.J. Mical and company. Is this a sign of lunacy, or desperation?] Now, does Commodore have the money to survive this turmoil like Apple did? Can it survive a really low-priced Mac, just like the Mac II will survive the low-end Sun work-station? Does Commodore know that so-so software becomes a hit through (good) advertising, and as a norm beats better software because of that? Lotus, for instance, spends miniscule amounts in developing its products compared to advertising and marketing them. Borland seemed like a big company when it started with all those big, splashy advertisements, right? Kahn wasn't even a legal American citizen then. Or will Commodore continue the tradition begun by having Alexander Haig it's board of directors and continue to be ruled by 'committee' and turn into another ADA, big and unwieldy? Though ADA's usefulness is up to debate, the point is made: Commodore doesn't have the D.O.D. to finance it's blunders! The author is not trying to cut down Commodore in any way. On the other hand, he has always supported the under-dog all the way. -I think they're a swell company with even 'sweller' products, if you'll pardon the expression. But this was intended to get you, and Commodore, to think. Hopefully the right person will see this and respond, just like that Texas millionaire saw the same 'Entrepreneurs' program as I did at the same time, and responded. He is now with Steve Jobs' NEXT, INC. and giving them the financial security they need to stay afloat with all their delays in coming out with that computer. I admit this is only my humble opinion and I also admit that I don't see the whole picture, as the Commodore Execs do (what a bad pun) and that I may be completely out of wack. (Bad expression?) This article is meant to get you to think, though. If you own a business, is it worth your money to invest in a computer that's not sufficiently backed by it's company, no matter what it says? Should you invest in a young upstart when a company like Apple is offering such perfect solutions? Shouldn't the programmer out there, the life-blood of any computer, be assured that there will be a market for the software he writes? What should keep him from writing software for the System/2 or the Mac II instead of the Amiga? We need more than promises now. Look at all the Amiga-hardware companies out of the game. Observe Borland, and the availability of Turbo Pascal for the Amiga, which they even advertised. Could there be a reason for Microsoft writing software for the (then) stripling of a Mac, and not the (still) stripling Amiga? What keeps the admittedly best computer in the game from being a success? Why does Commodore have FCC problems, and not the rest? What are the real-world solutions to these woes? I have only put on paper (or your screen) what is becoming glaringly obvious. And unless something's there that I don't know about, I predict Commodore will get (and stay in) extremely serious trouble in the coming months with the management it has now. Take the PC 10-II just introduced into the U.S. They over-price it, and give the dealers 30% profit margins. (A word of explanation for the Canadian readers: Computer stores are not the way to go in the U.S. -mass mail 'retailers' get the lions share of the computers sold) Sure, some businesses will buy it, it might even do good. But what is it that makes the 'smarter' person (and they're getting more abundant) want to buy it over the Atari PC, and Amstrad, the Amdahl, the Tandy, (etc.) computers? What makes it stand out? Is Commodore behind the times in this highly competitive market? Should the management retire back to their sunny and nice Australia and let the younger (Pepsi) generation take hold of the reins? What do YOU think. I would like to hear your comments on Electronic Arcs' (Fan?) mail section (ha-ha) and see other Amiga owners/lovers become involved in something which may directly affect the Amiga's future. I for one think that if Commodore doesn't shape-up it would be nice for say Sun, or Apollo, to buy the computer and do it right. Or maybe Atari... ?