Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Was the article by Sheldon Leemon by any chance?  He has written
    some authoratative(??) stuff before on this subject.
    
    Also, another myth has recently been debunked...the myth of awesome
    ST sales volumes.  COMPUTE! magazine recently stated that the ST
    had an installed base of "at least 10 times" the Amiga installed
    base.  Well, I have in my hand an article from Computer Systems
    News that reports on Atari's Stock Prospectus.  According to Atari,
    150,000 STs have been shipped since September '85, with 59% of sales
    to Europe.  So, that means only 61,500 STs are installed in the
    US.  
    
    Best estimates for Amiga sales (US ONLY) are 100,000 units as of
    June '86.  'Course, there is no reason to believe that CBM's figures
    are any more accurate than Atari's.  So, it could well be that the
    Amiga has outsold the ST, at least in the USA.  (Amiga did not begin
    to ship to Europe 'til June '86). 
                             
    I hope this influences the software houses, who in general will
    support whichever system appears to be a greater cash cow.
    

    I believe I have seen figures that Electronic Arts has shipped in
    excess of $1000000 worth of their Deluxe Paint for the Amiga as
    of a few months back (and anybody who's seen it knows why).  The
    Amiga's success seems to be one of the best kept secrets in the
    industry, so well kept that people can keep claiming it's a failure!
    
    I got a copy of that Personal Computing "10 Best" issue; even though
    they list Commodore as having sold enough machines to warrant TWO
    entries in the top 10 sales list, they don't bother listing CBM's
    phone number in their "numbers you should have" list.  Somewhat
    bizarrely, DG and Wang are there, but DEC is not (guess they haven't
    heard about the VAXMate yet (or whatever we're calling it now)).
    This magazine's bias is blatant - They refer to the EGA as a "major
    breakthrough" and "most influential development" when the Amiga
    will run circles around it for less $.  Oh well...
    
    len.
    

    re .1
    
    Yes, it was written by him.
    
    Randy
    

    re: .2  
    
    I worked at DG for over 8 years, and believe me, all they are
    interested in these days is selling overpriced clones and staying
    alive.  All the incredible innovation and creative energy I saw when
    I joined them after college vanished about four years ago.
    
    As to Personal Computing magazine, I would not line my hamster cage
    with that rag.  They call the Radio Shack Model 100 portable an
    incredible success story 'cause it sold over 100k units, but 4 million
    C'64s doesn't impress them, not does 100K+ Amigas and STs.
    

    
re. Atari Sales

    Thats funny, I heard that Atari's Stock Prospectus stated that they 
sold 150k units THROUGH September '85 which means that the figure only 
accounted for 3 months sales. It hardly matters as far as which system 
is better. If numbers were the only reason to pick a computer we'd all
have Sinclair's!

							Dave    

    I'll recheck the article that I read..'tho I doubt Atari sold that
    many units in three months.. I couldn't find an ST until October
    of '85, which is when I bought my Amiga after a brief ST demo. 
    Neither machine had any real software, but the Amiga just 'felt'
    better to me, plus I wanted to piss off my brother in law, who really
    wanted to sell me a Mac.  
    
    I am glad that Atari is making money, though I'm no fan of Jacks.
    Even the most hard core Amiga snob has to be impressed that Atari
    can build a machine that costs little more than an Amiga 1 meg ram
    board, and still throw in a keyboard, power supply, disk drive,
    monitor, Motorola 68000, operating system, and free software.
    
    

    I read another article in (I think) Software Newsletter that clearly
    stated that Atari's prospectus reflected sales thru Sept. 15, 1986,
    not 1985.  Still not bad, considering they had an uphill battle
    in finding distribution outlets.  Oddly, the same note said that
    most people were buying thru specialty stores, which I assume means
    that people are not buying from Toys 'R' Us.
    
    I also read that the Amiga is sold out in Europe, and sales are
    limited only by availability!!  This is good news for all 68***
    owners, since the Mac, ST, and Amiga all seem to have found their
    own niche, but have one common enemy: the Clones!