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Re The Great Commodore…
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1995-04-20
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Subject: Re: The Great Commodore Conspiracy
From: frotz@omni.voicenet.com (Steve Bara)
Date: 20 Apr 1995 10:13:54 GMT
Message-ID: <3n5c52$msm@nova.voicenet.com>
The Famous Brett Watson (brett@abc.gov.au) wrote:
: [Assumption:] The management benefits in some way from what would
: otherwise be called poor management.
: [Inquiry:] What possible benefit could there be
Good Question! But your answer sucks. There are several rather obvious points
that you missed, I think. Here are a few theories:
1) The management of CBM also held massive amounts of stock in their own
company, and could make LOTS of money by manipulating the stock value through
their own management actions. This includes BAD management. For example, if
you ran your business poorly and ran the value of the stock down, you could
grab more stock, then announce a possible buyout (as happened before the
liquidation) quietly but loudly enough to drive up the price of the stock. Then
you could sell the stock, make a BUNCH of money and then blow out the company
in order to evade the bill collectors.
2) The total lack of advertising and marketing efforts by CBM is rather
striking for a US computer company. The explanation was the lack of a solid
dealer network in the US, but this poses another question that was left in
the air - why was the dealer network allowed to disintegrate? Does simple
stupidity adequately explain actions that the most basic business principles
would find so grossly destructive? We're not talking about bumbling, we're
talking about a strategy to systematically put yourself out of business.
3) CBM had a research and development team that was quite wonderful, given
the resources that they were alloted, but how many high-technology companies
producing competitive hardware spend less than 1% of their yearly earnings
on R + D? The ONLY company that comes to mind is CBM. Even if they thought
that the amiga was a futile effort after several years of bad sales, the
sensible move for a "going concern" (a well managed business) is to try and
develop a more palatable product, or try to advertise more. More and more of
the actions of CBM through the years not only defied logic, but things like
lack of R+D defy even the most common sense business management ideas.
4) Many large US companies go under every year, and in fact many of them are
high technology companies, but the 10 year plight of the amiga begs the
question "Why didn't you change your strategy when you saw these results?".
This wasn't a sudden bad year, or an accident of stupidity, but a steady
slow (agonizingly so) decline of a billion dollar a year company. There was
NO change in management strategy even when sales plummeted. Although there
was a revolving door on the president's office, this sort of decline in
business would prompt most companies to change MANY of their plans. Instead
we saw CBM take a 10 year dive into liquidation. This isn't the usual up
and down pattern that any business shows, even in decline, but a steady plunge
into the toilet. It certainly doesn't prove any conspiracy theories, but
it does indicate serious mismanagement that went unchecked for years.