Conference hydra::amiga_v1

3403.0. "What's happening with Amiga sales?" by HPSCAD::GATULIS (Frank Gatulis 297-6770) Tue Jan 30 1990 09:22

    
    Has anyone heard news of the impact of the recent Amiga advertizing
    campaign.  Was it effective, or ......?   I got wondering about it's
    success after reading the following note (from the guitar notes file)
    which mentions Amiga a couple of times but still hypes Atari as
    being the top music machine.   This seems to me like Commodore missed
    yet another opportunity to promote Amiga capabilities.
    
    -----------------------------------------------------------
                 <<< CVG::WORK1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]GUITAR.NOTE;2 >>>
                              -<  Guitar Notes  >-
================================================================================
Note 1625.10           NAMM '90 - hot products on the way               10 of 11
PNO::HEISER "Peg Leg Speed King"                    203 lines  29-JAN-1990 15:41
                 -< NAMM report from Atari's ZNET newsletter >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 CompuServe Mail - 71777,2140                         GEnie Mail - Z-NET
 =======================================================================

 POINTER SISTERS CHANGE SIDES AGAIN:
> Last year at NAMM and other shows, the Pointer Sisters band appeared to
> promote ATARI.  Much of their album and show performances relied on MIDI
> equipment controlled by Atari.  So when the Pointer Sisters appeared at
> the now-infamous floating house of Amiga on the TV ads, we wondered why.
> More recently, the Band is back in the Atari camp, appearing again at
> NAMM.  Members report that they did indeed get AMIGA equipment, and
> actually used it.  It took experience to lead them to finally sort out
> the Atari disks from the Amiga ones, and retire the Amigas to the
> closet.  From now on, it is ATARI all the way for the Pointer Sisters.
>
> * NAMM EXCLUSIVE REPORT
> -----------------------> ATARI ONCE AGAIN THE COMPUTER OF CHOICE
>                          ---------------------------------------
>                          Eyewitness Report by John Nagy
 
 [Note: Pictures of the Atari booth and a number of the people and
 products mentioned in this article are available in the GEnie,
 Compuserve, and BBS libraries.  They were made using the VIDI-ST
 digitizer and can be viewed with any DEGAS compatible picture viewer.
 Z*Net is proud to be able to continue our tradition of not just telling
 the news, but actually SHOWING it to you!]
 
 The National Association of Music Merchants show (NAMM) is a lot like a
 visit to the Twilight Zone... a peculiar mixture of tight leather and
 Brooks Brothers Suits... just what you would expect to see at the corner
 of New York's Wall Street and Los Angeles' Sunset Boulevard.  You
 quickly pick up the protocols, though: don't stare at the pink hair.
 Apparently it is more acceptable to stare at the women in the revealing
 outfits that are plentiful both in the exhibits and in the audience.

 NAMM, the "international music market", is where music dealers,
 performers, integrators, manufacturers, etc., meet each year to set the
 agenda for the coming sales months.  Everything musical is here, from
 banjo string companies through to the million dollar studio mix
 consoles.  It draws big name performers both to see what the industry
 has new to offer and to support various companies with their
 endorsements and performances.  The crowd is a wild mix of users and
 business persons sporting the full range of tattered levis and torn tie-
 died T-shirts with a safety pin in their nose up through immaculate 3-
 piece suits.  And of course, music is coming at you from everywhere.

 This year's Winter NAMM is no different.  Held in the Anaheim Convention
 Center next door to Disneyland January 19-21, it had close to a thousand
 exhibitors and maybe 100,000 visitors and sprawled into the Hilton and
 Towers and Marriott hotel convention facilities.  There are literally
 miles of isles.  It is a CES of music.  In the midst of this, a 54'
 banner hung over the central snack bar, announcing "BEYOND MIDI - THE
 NEXT GENERATION FROM ATARI".  A two room suite above the main floor
 beckons to show goers and offering a private meeting lobby and a
 completely outfitted recording studio.

 Atari brought nearly 20 STACY laptop ST machines to NAMM, and 10 of them
 went directly to the floor display of DR. T, a leader in MIDI software.
 Others were on display in the Atari lobby, and one was controlling
 sounds in the Atari studio next door.  On hand for Atari were Donny
 Osmond, Jimmy Hotz, and Mick Fleetwood, who are also associated with a
 small Atari quarterly project called MIDI MAGAZINE.  Hotz and Fleetwood
 are also involved in a project that many thought had died off... the
 ATARI/HOTZ MIDI TRANSLATOR.

 The keyless keyboard of the Hotz box was central stage at the Atari
 studio.  This is said to be a real production version of the first model
 HOTZ box to be commercially available.  All that was lacking on this one
 was the silk-screening on the back to identify the ports, and discussion
 overheard at the show indicated that some internal bracing should be
 beefed up, but what we saw, touched, even played with at NAMM will be
 shipping very shortly.  This particular unit was used in the latest
 FLEETWOOD MAC LP and would be heading back into the real recording
 studio for more work as soon as NAMM was over.

 Whatz a Hotz?  Well, it is sorta like a keyboard, but there are no
 moving pieces.  The play surface is hard plastic, with no apparent give.
 Ridges and colors mark off different zones and rows of places to touch,
 but no marking are on any.  The concept seems to be that you decide what
 does what.  The box is an input device, but the heart of the HOTZ is the
 software.  This program controls the ranges and harmonies available at
 any given time to match that of whatever music you are playing with.
 Set up properly, any child will be able to use the device and make/add
 pleasing music, playing with standard CD records.  Encoded on the CD
 will be a few inaudible electronic bursts that tell the Hotz what to do
 when to keep things in tune.  NO, it's NOT a "player piano" idea at all.
 You can choose the instrument and depth of chords, and choose the timing
 and notes to play.  Hotz just makes sure the harmonies match and the
 notes are in the right chord structure.  The result is that any
 improvisation, any guitar solo, anything you can imagine (hear) in your
 head, you can play without the usual "clashes" of mistakes.  In the
 studio, the input parameters would be keyed in before performance, with
 the same result.  Perfect keying on solos and fills, with the musician
 free to create mood, depth, and accent.  Musicians are by and large VERY
 interested in the Atari/Hotz device.  It can be ordered NOW for a mere
 $7,000 by calling Atari at 408-745-4966.  A consumer version is to be
 announced later in the year.

 The STACY drew plenty of attention as well, plugged into the MIDI setup
 and controlling the remarkable music that Hotz and Fleetwood
 demonstrated for small groups of visitors throughout the show.

 The other star of the MIDI studio was an audio-visual setup at the far
 end of the room.  With it, Scott Gershin of SOUNDELUX showed how he did
 the sound and music for the Golden Globe Award winning movie "BORN ON
 THE FOURTH OF JULY" starring Tom Cruise.  Scott did the sound for the
 blockbuster film using ATARI and MIDI equipment.  To demonstrate, Scott
 showed us a raw edit of part of the movie with all the original sound
 recorded at the time.  Although the visuals were great, the sound was
 horrid.  Scott started tweaking, "sweetening", and adding sound effects.
 The Atari's whirred, and Scott described how Tom Cruise re-dubbed the
 lines for later insertion.  In minutes, we viewed the same clip with
 fabulous stereo sound, stirring music, and clean clear voices and
 effects.  Then Scott popped a cart out of the Atari Megafile 44
 removable media hard drive and said, "Everything you just heard came off
 this drive.  I can non-destructively re-edit, extend, move any part of
 it as many times as I want with no degradation in the digital quality
 sound."  He said his full set of sound files for "BORN ON THE FOURTH"
 run a total of nearly 55 GIGABYTES of data, almost impossible to handle
 before the removable media made it easy.  About four minutes of full-
 sample finished stereo mix audio can be held on each 44 megabyte
 cartridge.  Scott says it is the commercial sound media of the future.
 SoundDelux can be reached at 7060 Hollywood Blvd, Suite 711, Hollywood,
 CA 90028, (213) 463-3855.

 Another neat discovery in the Atari Studio was the SYSTEM SOLUTIONS
 modified MEGA machines.  They are rack-mountable and a sexy BLACK color
 (even the mouse!) to better travel with road musicians.  The MST2-RACK
 (2 meg) runs $2299, $2999 for the MST4-RACK.  Rackable hard drives and
 monitor equipment is also available.  Contact Henry Bahr at System
 Solutions, PO Box 433, West Chicago, Illinois 60185, or call (708) 690-
 0930.

 Visitors to the Atari lobby found plenty of good literature, informed
 people (including Jay Crosby, Frank Foster, Wayne Smith, Bob Brodie,
 Diane Goralchec, Charles Cherry, and John King Tarpinian), and a stack
 of PORTFOLIOS.  But the item that was the biggest disruption to progress
 was undoubtedly the pair of LYNX games that absolutely everyone HAD to
 get their hands on.

 Atari's booth looked pretty good, considering the machines and supplies
 needed to assemble it barely made it to the show.  Workers and
 volunteers from Orange County Atari User Groups arranged to have three
 days to set up... one more than anyone thought would be needed.  Well,
 the equipment was mixed up and sent to the wrong airport, arriving two
 days late.  Yikes.  Long and hard work paid off with a good display, and
 Atari rewarded volunteers with Portfolios and even a pair of MEGA 4
 computers for their outstanding efforts.

 The Atari exhibit did not draw the traffic that it might have on the
 main floor, but that was a trade off for privacy and ability to let the
 demos really scream.  Some visitors were put off by the relatively "off
 limits looking" entrance door and stairs up to the booth, thinking that
 this was for employees or by invitation, despite the large ATARI sign
 above it.  On the other hand, no one that came to the show LOOKING for
 Atari (lots!) would have missed it, and Atari had plenty of floor
 exposure in third party booths.  This is one major show where the
 AVERAGE person knows who/what/why ATARI is about.

> What about the "other" computer companies?  Well, it turns out that
> COMMODORE did in fact sneak a last minute booth into the show, but it
> was at the furthest corner of the furthest hall... and was largely
> boring.  One Amiga was running some sort of sequencer (in color of
> course) but most of the display had nothing to do with MIDI or music.
> As a result, few attendees had time for browsing there.  NO OTHER
> computer maker was there at all.

 Friday night's concert was also delayed by the equipment foul up, but
 went on as planned, featuring the members of the band CREAM at the
 Disneyland Hotel.  Now called the JACK BRUCE BAND, they played after the
 MICHEAL SHRIEVE BAND (including POLICE guitarist Dave Torn).  Frankly,
 most of the Atari people were so worn out from the hectic day, no one
 we talked to stayed for the whole concert!  Lots of music industry
 people did, though, and seemed to be very happy with the performances.
 The concert was co-sponsored by MUSICIAN MAGAZINE.

 European music magazines are said to be "fighting" over who will get to
 co-sponsor a concert and presentation with Atari at the upcoming
 Frankfort Show.  Sort of a German NAMM, it is the continent's most
 prestigious music event of the year.  We'll keep you posted as we find
 out more.

 We already know that ATARI will be sponsoring the 24th anniversary WORLD
 TOUR of Fleetwood Mac, and Atari's Frank Foster will be going along on
 part of that tour.  The largest tour ever for the band, it will begin in
 March in Australia.  Atari will be the technology provider, and Frank
 will go along to conduct seminars and "grassroots" level support for the
 MIDI market of Atari.  The HOTZ box will be a key part of the musical
 support Fleetwood Mac will use on tour.

 There was lots more to NAMM... more than one week's worth of news.  So
 next week, Z*Net will tell you about the MIDI developers meeting and
 some exciting details about MIDI-TASKING.  Yes, as we exclusively
 reported 2 weeks ago, Atari did show their endorsed multitasking system
 to developers.  It looks -REAL GOOD- and we'll tell you what we can
 about it next week.  Suffice to say for now, this system is REAL and can
 be ready to ship to consumers in the next 3-6 months.  It is expected to
 be part of a bundle of MIDI software, including a HOTZ startup package,
 to be included with the STACY laptop ST... which should start shipping
 to dealers by February 1!

 We'll have a lot of other announcements and reactions from the
 developers at NAMM, all -an ONLY- in next week's Z*Net.
    
    

    Notice where it is extracted from? (Atari ZNET magazine)
    
    Naturally the news is focused on the Atari.  I'm glad CBM made
    the effort to at least show up.  I wonder what AmigaWorld will
    have to say about that show.
    
    Meanwhile, back in the real world :-)  did you notice how many
    things Atari has that CBM doesn't offer.
    1. removable harddisk
    2. midi ports on every system
    3. a laptop system
    4. that HOLTZ box
    
    On the other hand, MIDI-TASKING???????
    
    -Dave

Re: .0

>    Meanwhile, back in the real world :-)  did you notice how many
>    things Atari has that CBM doesn't offer.
>    1. removable harddisk

Just buy the same removable harddisk as Atari sells and plug it in.
What's the big deal?  Several of the third party disk controllers
automatically recognize when you change the disk; the Commodore
controller requires you to type Diskchange.

    How well Commodore did in the Christmas quarter is a topic of much
    discussion on Usenet and probably a bit on Wall Street -- their
    earnings report should be out any day.
    
    On the other hand, the February issue of _Byte_ compares Amiga
    favorably with those Other Brands in the multimedia area.  _Byte_ even
    mentions an "as yet unnamed multimedia authoring system" supposedly to
    be released by Commodore this month.
    
    For reliable information on personal computers in music, I suggest
    reading _Electronic Musician_, _Keyboard_ or one of the other
    electronic music-oriented magazines available at larger newsstands.
    
    If the author of .0 feels a bit overwhelmed by what he read, I suggest
    reading an issue or two of _INFO_ as antidote  :-) :-).
    
    Wes

    
    I read the ZNet article about Amiga sales and the ad campaign.  The
    article stated that sales were up about 10%, but did not quote the
    sources.  They also said that CBM was hugely disappointed with the
    results.  Sales would have had to increase 38% just to break even on the
    ad campaign, according to ZNet.
    
    I've always wondered where these Atari rags get all their
    information... I suspect they make up a lot of it, since I find it
    impossible to believe that any company would spend sufficient money on
    an ad campaign to require a 38% sales increase just to recover costs. 
    However, looking at CBM's past successes, who knows...  
                                                   
    Ed.
                                                      
    

        To add more to rumors, in the December 1989 issuse of Current
        Notes (an Atari Users group mag. out of the Washington, D.C.
        area) in the article "ST Update" by Frank Sommers the rumors had
        it that - Loans are being called and the IRS appeal case for $125
        million is likely to go against Commodore.  One estimate was that
        Commodore would lose %15 million on the last quarter even if
        sales inreased by as much as 20%.
        
        Adding to that, in the 22 December issue of ST-ZMAG, Gigatron, a
        West German company will introduce an Amiga laptop in March 1990.
        The 1-meg clone will cost $2,500 or $3,500 depending upon
        selected screen.  Additional units are planned that will include
        2 and 4 meg machines and internal hard drives.  Commodore is said
        to be welcoming the product, signaling their own intention NOT to
        compete in the laptop market.
        
        Finally, from here in Phoenix, I was down at the local
        Atari/Amiga store talking to the owner (who is also the service
        manager/ lead technician/ troublshooter) about memory expansions
        for the ST (they digitized my JRI RAM+ SIMM expander module for
        my ST using an Amiga 2000 running DigiView 4.0.  I foget the
        camera used, but it came out very nicely and almost as good as
        our own VAXcamera implementation).  He still finds the Amiga
        hardware to be more unreliable and senstive than the Atari
        hardware - Toshiba RAMs won't work in the Amiga, but work fine in
        all the other machines, including some IBM clones.  (Note that he
        is not pro-Atari, cause he could sell a lot of Atari hardware if
        they would deliver!!)
        
        His feelings and impressions about Commodore have not changed in
        the two years I have been dealing with him.  And it is the
        hardware problems that caused me to buy an Atari instead of an
        Amiga.  (Though the Atari keyboard is the biggest p$%#^$%#%#$ o$
        #$@# I have ever owned.)
        
        Also, please remember - this is Fred Fish country and we still
        have a large number of Ataris out here.  On the up side, he has
        opened a new store down in Mesa which adds to the Atari/Amiga
        outlets and provides better service to the Users throughout the
        Metro area.
        
        Bob

        BTW - Ed, what are you doing reading ZNET?  Thinking of getting a
        second system?  Maybe an Atari? ;->
        
        

    Re: .3

>    On the other hand, the February issue of _Byte_ compares Amiga
>    favorably with those Other Brands in the multimedia area.  _Byte_ even
>    mentions an "as yet unnamed multimedia authoring system" supposedly to
>    be released by Commodore this month.
    
    The "as yet unnamed multimedia authoring system" is discussed in the
    article "Multimedia is the Message" in the Feb 90 issue of AmigaWorld.
    It's simply called the "Commodore Authoring System". The article didn't
    even mention that it was from C=.
							-Dom

    
    Bob, you must be joking!  Me, an Atari owner?  Sorry, but my next
    computer, if there is one, will not be made by the Trameil family, I
    can assure you.
    
    Ed.

    re: 44 meg removeable disk drive
    
    The missing part is the Commodore label on one.  If you were a first
    time buyer of CBM stuff, wouldn't you prefer to buy as much as possible
    from CBM to minimize the finger pointing if something doesn't work?
    
    Look at how long it took CBM to even offer a harddisk.
    
    re: electronic news magazines.  This all started because of an article
    in an ST one.   Are there any for the Amiga?  It's fun reading the
    ST ones, even with their bias, because Atari is facing the same
    general market pressure from ibmpc clones as the Amiga.  Interesting
    to see how Atari reacts to it compared to CBM.
    
    -Dave                                         

    
    AmyToday is an electronic weekly that pops up on PLINK and Genie.  Like
    ZNet and STReport (who's editor writes at about fourth grade level),
    AmyToday is a lot of rah-rah and not much content.
    
    > The missing part is the Commodore label on one.  If you were a first
    > time buyer of CBM stuff, wouldn't you prefer to buy as much as possible
    > from CBM to minimize the finger pointing if something doesn't work?
    
    I dunno Dave, eleventy-zillion people are buying Gladys L. Ferguson PCs
    without much regard to brand name.
    
    > ST ones, even with their bias, because Atari is facing the same
    > general market pressure from ibmpc clones as the Amiga. 
    
    C'mon Dave, you can't blame Atari's obscurity on PC clones... they have
    approximately no dealer network left in the USA, and their 32 bit model
    line is two years late.  Add to that that their complete lack of
    advertising and credibility (except in the MIDI market), and you have
    the recipe for an orphan computer line.  Sure, loyal developers and
    users will keep the ST line alive for years, but I think it's safe to
    say that the ST has made but an asterisk in computing history.
    
    The next year will decide if the Amiga fares any better.
    
    Ed.

Re: .9

>    re: 44 meg removeable disk drive
>    
>    The missing part is the Commodore label on one.  If you were a first
>    time buyer of CBM stuff, wouldn't you prefer to buy as much as possible
>    from CBM to minimize the finger pointing if something doesn't work?

Probably, as a first time buyer I'd want my dealer to put together a
system that I just plug into the wall and turn on.  If there is any
finger pointing, it'll be at the dealer.

Does Apple offer a removable hard drive?

    Back to the original topic...  :-)  Here's an article from Usenet which
    quotes the _Wall Street Journal_.  Comments first:  CBM is not alone in
    having a lousy quarter.  Just look in the business section of the
    _Boston Globe_ about layoffs up and down the Mass. high tech corridor. 
    Also, someone speculated on Usenet that these numbers translate to
    (somewhat wild guess) 250,000 Amigas sold between October and the end
    of the year.
    
    Wes
    
Article        48390
From: [email protected] (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Commodore Quarterly results
Date: 2 Feb 90 07:44:21 GMT
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 27
 
This is the Quarterly Earnings Report for Commodore International,
just published in the Wall Street Journal:
 
Year Dec 31		1989		1988
----------------------------------------------------
Sales..........		$310,700,000	$349,000,000
Net Income.....		  11,300,000	  38,200,000
Avg Shares.....	 	  32,458,000	  31,901,000
Shr Earns:
	Net Income	         .35	         .52
	6 months:
Sales..........		 476,000,000	 549,200,000
Net Income.....		   4,800,000	  47,800,000
Avg shares.....		  32,331,000	  31,971,000
Shr Earns:
	Net Income	         .15	        1.50
 
Commodore is listed as "Quarterly Earning Surprises" in the Negative section,
since it reported .35c quarterly profits/per share instead of an expected .66c.
 
So, this quarter broke the series of losses of the past two quarters, but
earnings were not that good either (as with most other computer companies).
 
-- Marco
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Xerox sues somebody for copying?" -- David Letterman
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    re:.10
    
    Actually, the comment was more directed to Atari's efforts to revive
    the US market.  That faces stiff competition from pc clones as well
    as the Amiga.  They also have a reputation to rebuild.  Not too
    long ago CBM started doing the same thing.  Atari is still promising
    the "Year of Atari".
    
    re: brand names
    Where do you get the Gladys or whatever ibmpc clone serviced?  At
    least with a brand name, you stand a chance of the manufacturer
    still being in business when something dies.  Of course, they might
    not still support your hardware :-)  Same applies for trusting
    the dealer to assemble the system and support you after the sale.
    
    Those millions have already bought their systems.  CBM needs to
    attract those who haven't.  Like the video market, music market,
    etc.  As well as refugees from other computers :-)
    If you have a good dealer, fine.  But otherwise you have to guess
    or do a lot of research to determine what the gotchas are with
    price vs. capability of third party stuff.
    
    -Dave