All

Haven't listened to it yet myself but may be of interest to others.

Cheers

Why did a best selling computer manufacturer go bust?

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@TiredofLife

Thanks!

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TiredofLife Quote:

Why did a best selling computer manufacturer go bust?

Strange. David Pleasance mentions C= had no CFO.

https://amigakit.amiga.store/commodore-company-edge-p-1010.html Quote:

Dick Sanford - Chief Financial Officer of Commodore

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-02-06-fi-733-story.html Quote:

“Trying to build for a very, very large Christmas season, given the financial position of the company, would not have been the right thing to do,” Michael Evans, chief financial officer, said in an interview.“Trying to build for a very, very large Christmas season, given the financial position of the company, would not have been the right thing to do,” Michael Evans, chief financial officer, said in an interview.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/06/21/commodore-is-hoping-for-some-christmas-cheer/8df758f2-5de4-4645-8a7b-2ac02659370a/ Quote:

"If Christmas is another bad season in Europe, this company's going to be hard-pressed to continue," the chief financial officer, Ronald B. Alexander, said in an interview last week.

Maybe C= handed the CFO position to a loyalist and/or kept them on a short leash but the CFO statement by Ronald B. Alexander near the end is very bold and honest, maybe too honest. His analysis was correct and he realized he would likely be out of a job soon so didn't have much to fear but the pessimism is detrimental to any potential attempts to save the business. Apple found a white knight in Microsoft who saved them without losing their independence so it was possible but Apple was generally more optimistic and better at selling higher margin (overpriced) computers.

David Pleasance is spot on about C= killing the goose that layed the golden egg by cancelling the Amiga 500 when the Amiga 600 was released. ECS was too little too late, the Amiga 300 should have been cancelled when it became the Amiga 600 and the AGA Amiga 1200 should have replaced the Amiga 500 only when demand or parts inventories declined.

David Pleasance also mentions C= never had a business plan. While the top executives lacked vision resulting in a lack of an overall business plan, they did have strategies for targeted markets. What he is complaining about may be more of a lack of communication between divisions, especially successful ones, and lack of cohesive execution. David claims to have suggested to C= upper management that he could sell twice as many Amiga 300s and ended up with a shipment of 10,000 Amiga 600 units instead. Jeff Porter claims he gave working Amiga 500 prototypes to the UK guys before production (under CEO Thomas Rattigan). The move to Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes management was not only disruptive but devastating in so many ways that it should be considered the major reason for the demise of C=. Of course Irving Gould was responsible for the ouster of Thomas Rattigan and Jack Tramiel. Thomas won a $9 million lawsuit against C= and Mehdi made $1-2 million a year so the ouster likely cost C= over $10 million which was considerable considering C='s finances. The departure of Jack and the lawsuit and competition from Atari no doubt cost C= millions if not tens of millions of dollars too. It sounds bad but C= had more of a business plan and more cohesive execution than the current Amiga entities that are suing themselves into oblivion while amateur hardware and micro businesses take over the Amiga market.

@matthey

For 3rd party CPU and Zorro II bus board upgrades, the A500 has superior expandability compared to the A600.

A600 feels like a PC laptop without a built-in screen. A600 effectively dead-ended GVP's 3rd party business model.

A1200's internal CPU expansion edge connector is an improvement. A1200's Philippines manufacturing rate is substantially lower than A500's Hong Kong factory.

Jack Tramiel wasn't any better with the Atari TOS platform's Blitter hardware product segmentation. Atari ST and STE situation is on Jack Tramiel.

The mess with the uncompetitive MOS/CSG 65x0 CPU R&D problem is on Jack Tramiel and led to Acorn developing the ARM CPU. Meanwhile, Intel quickly evolved from 8086 to 1982's 80286 and 1985's 32-bit 80386. 80286 had standardized MMU and clone PC market for the business market's Microsoft Xenix.

The uncompetitive MOS/CSG 65x0 CPU road map mess led many 65x0 microcomputer platform vendors to select Motorola's 68000.

ARM's existence is the result of Jack Tramiel's fukup.

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@matthey

David Pleasance is a nice enough guy with some interesting stories to share over a pint of beer, but the further in the past the story takes place, the more grains of salt should be taken.

Last edited by agami on 27-Jan-2024 at 03:11 AM.

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Hammer Quote:

Jack Tramiel wasn't any better with the Atari TOS platform's Blitter hardware product segmentation. Atari ST and STE situation is on Jack Tramiel.

Jack deserves some of the blame for being forced out of C=. Both Jack and Irving abused power and were guilty of cronyism. The Atari ST was descent hardware for the cost and time to market even though the Amiga was technically superior in just about every way. The Amiga was technically superior to the Mac in practically every way too but the Jackintosh offered better value than the Mac.

Hammer Quote:

The mess with the uncompetitive MOS/CSG 65x0 CPU R&D problem is on Jack Tramiel and led to Acorn developing the ARM CPU. Meanwhile, Intel quickly evolved from 8086 to 1982's 80286 and 1985's 32-bit 80386. 80286 had standardized MMU and clone PC market for the business market's Microsoft Xenix. The uncompetitive MOS/CSG 65x0 CPU road map mess led many 65x0 microcomputer platform vendors to select Motorola's 68000. ARM's existence is the result of Jack Tramiel's fukup.

Chuck Peddle likely deserves some of the blame for lack of 6502 development road map. Part of the problem was just becoming too busy where Bill Mensch left and developed much of the 6502 family 16 bit successors at Western Design Center, albeit with years of delay (the 1979 68000 also lost momentum as the full 32 bit 68020 was not released until 1984 due to being swamped by demand). Chuck and Bill were both visionaries but Chuck saw the 6502 family CPU cores as building blocks that could be chained together when more bits were needed. He could have designed a bare minimum 16 or 32 bit CPU instead but that wasn't as important as a minimalist 8 bit CPU had been a few years earlier when every transistor was precious. There were nicer 16 and 32 bit designs later including 8086, 6809 and 68000. Software compatibility was a reason to retain 6502 family compatibility but the hardware usually had other limitations not that the SNES or Apple IIGS were bad or unsuccessful. The 68000 based Amiga can be upgraded to 4 GiB of memory and GHz CPU speeds where 6502 family hardware like the C64, Apple II and NES are toys in comparison. They can be fully implemented in an affordable FPGA at full speed where a 68k Amiga deserves much better to realize even half of its modern full potential.

agami Quote:

David Pleasance is a nice enough guy with some interesting stories to share over a pint of beer, but the further in the past the story takes place, the more grains of salt should be taken.

He has charisma and instincts but seems to me to be less of an intellectual.

Last edited by matthey on 27-Jan-2024 at 04:03 AM.