NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/1608

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 3.9 KB

Path: spva.ph.ic.ac.uk!philip
From: [e-mail] (Phil Shimmin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: AT UK redundancies
Date: 15 Jan 1996 10:53:58 GMT
Organization: Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London, England
Sender: [e-mail] (Philip Shimmin)
Message-ID: <4ddbo6$[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mho.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk

In article <[e-mail]>, Paul Chan <paul> writes:
|> [e-mail] (Wells Fargo Bank) wrote:
|> >Mat Bettinson ([e-mail]) wrote:
|> >
|> >: Some news; (We heard a couple of days ago but I've been extremely busy)
|> >
|> >: Jonathan Anderson, joint MD of Amiga Technologies UK,  and two other support
|> >: staff have been laid off from the small UK outfit.
|> >
|> >: The reason given is "Very poor sales over Christmas."
|>
|> Is it any suprise, even A500 Amigans who want to upgrade think twice about the
|> rise in price. I`m still wishing I got hold of an A1200 for 99-199UK pounds
|> when Dixons and Currys decided to ditch their stock of A1200s.
|>
|> >
|> >: They are to go by the 28th of this month.
|> >
|> >: The remaining staff are also moving from the old Commodore location,
|> >: Maidenhead, to the Escom offices in Stansted.
|>
|> IMHO, they should have done this in the first place.
|>
|> >
|> >: John Smith, joint MD, will retain his post.
|> >
|> >:              .--,   /\           _   _
|> >:      _ ___   |CU|  /  \  |\/| | | _ |_|
|> >: /\/\(-) |  @ `--' /----\ |  | | |_| | |  Staff technical writer
|> >:                  /      \
|> >: < Opinions expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer >
|> >
|> >
|> >AT must realize that with an over-priced high-end A4000T and an underpowered
|> >low-end A1200, they couldn't expect to get MAJOR sales, also when you factor
|> >in the fact that a new series of Amigas would be coming out in a relatively
|> >short period of time.  I am waiting for March to see what the are going to
|> >offer us.  I would buy a used A1200 if thats all I wanted.  I do hope to see
|> >things pick up when the new machines come out.  Market the Netster/Surfer
|> >pack, especially once the new low-end machine comes out.  This WILL sell!
|>
|> This really does take the mickey - all th Amiga magazines have splashed
|> Anderson`s face all over their news and features pages (sometime, I wish it
|> were Pamela, and not Jonathan ;), and AT is going to have some serious egg on
|> their face, not to mention some new doubts over their handling of the Amiga,
|> when the next magazine editions go out with this news in.
|>
|> By attempting to cash in on initial sales by hiking the price they alienated
|> many folks who would have bought the first A1200s upon impulse. I for one would
|> hve allowed the first A1200`s to arrive at 299 (it`s old price) - and let the
|> things sell out completely. Thus creatig a real demand for the next batch, and
|> soon. Instead, they are left with high priced Amigas which are still left in
|> the shops unsold, especially with the low-priced 486`s flying around.
|>
|> C= made a similar error with CD32. It was priced too high and consequently
|> didn`t sell enough to create a large enough user-base. C= folded. Will Escom
|> ditch the Amiga?
|>
|>
|> Quite simply, if the March Amiga does not meet up to our expectations -
|> especially in price, then it almost may as well be goodnight Vienna...
|>

Yeah, but by the same token CBM ran into trouble and alienated retailers by
constantly bringing out better deals, slashing prices etc and leaving the
retailers out of pocket on existing stock.

Announcing a new package which is miles better and much more reasonably priced
could do the same thing. I fully agree that AT messed up on the pricing, but
they'll have to be careful/diplomatic about their next move.

Phil.