NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/hardware-part1/8654

Text File | 1996-08-05 | 8.3 KB | 183 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!dsinc!scala!darren
From: [e-mail] ("Darren M. Greenwald")
Subject: Re: Dump the crappy hardware!!! (was: Haynie joins AT team)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 13:31:25 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: US Research and Development - Scala Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave Haynie) writes:
>In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] ("Darren M. Greenwald") writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (NeuroMancer) writes:
>
>>>Michael van Elst, regarding your message ' Re: Dump the crappy hardware!!! (was: Haynie joins AT team)'  -
>>>
>>>>[e-mail] (Kevin Pluck) writes:
>
>>>>>AT are making the wrong move with trying to design hardware for the amiga
>
>>>>Because you cannot make money with selling an operating system.
>
>>>What's microslop doing then ?
>
>And it's was worse for C= and Apple than the typical PC company. While
>they had more control over their hardware designs, they never tapped
>into the whole economy of scale thing that happened in the late 80s
>and early 90s. Under the old model, every PC vendor did most of their

The other aspect of economy of scale is that as the base of
units grows, so does the level of advertising and support.
Every advertisement for a PC product ultimately legitimizes the
platform as viable.  A PC clone buyer is already convinced that
a PC clone is the platform they will buy, then it is a question
of what company to buy it from.  On the other hand, Commodore
and Apple have to spend much more of their own advertising
money to convince potential buyers that their proprietary
platform makes sense.


>And then there's software. A PC system house may do some BIOS work,
>maybe even a device driver or two, maybe a few simple value added
>attractor programs to get you to pick a Packard Bell over a Compaq
>when you're wandering the aisles of Computer City. They don't, for the
>most part, do real software development. C= and Apple, on the other
>hand, did tons of software development, some of it even ground

Exactly.  Clone vendors need invest little in R&D, and for
the same reason, are able to turn around new products incorporating
the latest technologies more quickly.

>breaking. Especially for Apple, the ground breaking part was
>necessary, since under their model, the only reason you bought a Mac
>was to get at this great software. Unfortunately, they couldn't move
>on new technologies as fast as Microsoft, so even on the OS they're
>lagging in many areas.

It is is classic case of best technology does not mean most
successful.  Sometimes making it to market earlier, or cheaper,
can make all the difference.

>Of course, neither Apple nor Commodore ever attempted to do a port to
>the PC platform. They certainly could have, and for Apple at least, a
>MacOS-86 in 1987 or so might have made this a different world. Unless
>you're doing a port to the PC, though, this isn't a big issue. The
>ability to support standard parts, as Apple is starting to do and
>Amiga Technologies must if there's to be an Amiga future, is not a
>promise to support everything that exists on the planet today. For the
>PC, you have to. OS/2 and Windows came along and found a zillion
>pre-existing cards on the PC. Windows leveraged itself in by using DOS
>drivers, and with volume managed to get a good degree of industry
>support. OS/2 has been much less successful, placing more of the onus
>of support on IBM. Not that IBM can't handle it, but they're not going
>to do as complete a job, no matter what.
>

Absolutely, though I think even IBM knows that support for
as many existing add-on cards as makes sense is important to
the products success. If you are going to sell an Operating System
in a box, there is tremendous marketing value in being able to
say that it works with most existing hardware.  You really
want skeptical buyers to give it a try on their systems in
addition to the serious buyers.  An Operating System like
OS/2 has always been marketed as an affordable alternative,
and I think marketed as an alternative to running Windows.

Probably of all the concerns people have about Windows 95,
the question "is it compatible with my hardware" is high
on the list.  Even if they ultimately upgrade the hardware,
it is a psychological brick wall that you want to be as
free of as possible.  Besides, you really want joe average
user to give your Operating System a try, and not be worried
that it won't work with their system.

>>The fact is that many PC hardware companies will not
>
>Sure they do. But there's no immediate need to support everything that
>exists. Apple ships their PCI based machines with an ATi graphics
>card, and a driver for it. They don't expect 100 different PCI cards


Agreed, but the point was just that having the industry standard
connectors is only step #1.  Step #2 is building up a library
of drivers, and that can be surprisingly expensive and time
consuming.

>
>>Say for example Commodore or Apple where to write drivers for a dozen
>>or so 3rd party video cards.  These are included in the OS.
>
>Where is the advantage of doing this? Every machine, obviously, needs
>a graphics card. If Apple's sales model requires bundling a card with
>every system, they only need to supply drivers for the cards they
>ship. If they ship unbundled, they can offer a small number of

Yes, but the point is it is a catch-22 situation for proprietary
systems, and an interesting problem for 3rd party developers.

Proprietary systems with proprietary connectors do offer
opportunities for 3rd party developers to make money building
cards for that system.  It also offers an opportunity for the
company to make some profit on add-on hardware for their system.

Remember the C64 ... how many of us bought a Commodore printer,
or a Commodore 1541, or a Commodore Monitor?  I certainly
bought a Commodore SCSI controller for my Amiga, a Commodore
accelerator card, and even one of those CHIP ram upgrades for
my A1000.  At the time I bought these, there where not a lot
of choices.

The problem for companies like Commodore or Apple is they cannot
afford to give away the razors if the rest of the industry is
selling you all of the blades.  The examples above are some
razors that put money in to Commodore's pockets.

The big question is this - if you do sell a proprietary system,
with some proprietary hardware, a proprietary OS, but do not
sell add-on hardware (because you work existing industry standard
hardware, drivers permitting), do not sell application software,
can you make enough selling people just the razors to stay is
business?

You see Microsoft really is selling both razors and razor blades,
though much cheaper razors than Commodore or Apple (floppies and
CD's are potential big profit items - they cost little to
make and can return you more dollars than much hardware that
is being sold).

On the other hand, if you are not building a proprietary system,
but rather a proprietary OS that runs on existing hardware,
drivers for most of the available add-on hardware will be
a significant issue to your potential buyers.

>
>That is the hardware-company model. Maybe you buy an upgrade OS from
>an Apple or C=, maybe a board (but that's going away, thanks to the
>end of proprietary expansion buses), that's it. IBM, Compaq, and the
>rest of them never see you again, at least until it's time for the
>next system buy.
>

Exactly.  And the problem is that this model has become less
and less profitable.  The PC guys can afford to compete in this
model because they do not have any real R&D costs, nor are they
owners of the OS.


>It's little wonder Microsoft intentionally kept out of the system
>hardware business...
>
>Dave Haynie          | ex-Commodore Engineering |   for DiskSalv 3 &
>Sr. Systems Engineer |  Hardwired Media Company | "The Deathbed Vigil"
>Scala Inc., US R&D   |    Ki No Kawa Aikido     |     [e-mail]
>
>         "Feeling ... Pretty ... Psyched" -R.E.M.
>


--
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Darren M. Greenwald         | Scala Inc. R&D            /
Senior Systems Engineer     | [e-mail]         o
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