This is Commodore's reply to the recent Washington Post article Enjoy! ========================== amiga.dev/news #54, from jwiede, 7781 chars, Fri Jul 24 16:50:17 1992 -------------------------- TITLE: Commodore asks for help... Commodore is aware of the activity on computer networks in response to the "Amiga/Slow Death" article written by Mr. Phillip Robinson. Commodore wants to assure all you who are concerned that we are not taking this lightly, and would appreciate your help in responding to Mr. Robinson and to newspapers who have reprinted the article. Therefore, we are providing the information that follows. It is a version of a correspondence sent to dealers in market areas where the article has appeared. All of us at Commodore share your concern about this story. The Commodore marketing and communications staff agree that this story is one-sided, contains several inaccuracies, and does not communicate the current thrust of our emerging, dynamic and leading U.S. business presence in multimedia and related applications. Specific Actions And An Update We've had two conversations with Mr. Robinson since his article first appeared. We communicated to him all of the reasons why suggesting that "Amiga is dying a slow death" couldn't be further from the truth! We have one additional interview scheduled with Mr. Robinson next Wednesday (July 29th). He will be writing a follow-up article after the interview. The follow-up article will appear first in the San Jose Mercury News and then will be distributed through the Knight Ridder distribution channels to your local paper. That process usually takes up to two weeks. Mr. Robinson reports that the feedback he's currently receiving from the "Amiga/Slow Death" article is the heaviest he's experienced in the eight years of doing this column. He reports that some of the more virulent negative feedback has included threats of violence. We of course do not endorse violent feedback of any kind. But you can take constructive steps to channel your negative reaction to Mr. Robinson's article. You can help manage the negative public perception Mr. Robinson's article has created by taking action with your local broadcast and print media. Please consider doing the the following: 1) Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper that ran the Robinson article. Correct the record. Use some of the message points we've provided. Voice your strong objection to the one-sided and ridiculous suggestion that Amiga and Commodore have no future. 2) Send a copy of your letter to the editor directly to Phillip Robinson. His address is P.O. Box 1357, Sausolito, CA 94966 (as printed in the San Jose Mercury News). 3) If you wish, voice your opinion to Mr. Robinson by leaving a voice-mail message for him at (415) 289-9498. Do this in the next seven days so you have impact on his follow-up article. Here are the primary message points that Commodore hopes to get across to Mr. Robinson. Perhaps you can include some of them in your letters to the editor: * Commodore is a one billion dollar company. * There are more that three million Amigas installed worldwide. * Phillip Robinson's recent article, which talks about a "slow death" for the Amiga, was written with no input from Commodore. * Commodore is not "killing" the Amiga. In fact, the company, and its developer network, currently are working on several enhancements to the Amiga product line. Significant product announcements are planned this Fall at the World of Commodore show in Pasadena. * Approximately 1000 dealers distribute the Amiga in the United States. * Commodore recently signed a sole national distribution agreement with Merisel, Inc., the world's largest publicly held distributor of microcomputer hardware and software products. * Commodore recently signed a strategic product reseller agreement with Digital Equipment Corporation.