Path: sparky!uunet!cbmvax!rutgers!sun-barr!lll-winken!uop!csusac!ucdavis!toadflax.cs
From: mer...@garfield.cs.mun.ca (Merril Locke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.announce
Subject: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <11102@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 92 00:56:07 GMT
Sender: use...@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: mer...@garfield.cs.mun.ca (Merril Locke)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.marketplace
Lines: 40
Approved: zer...@cs.ucdavis.edu
[ The moderator wishes to express his support of this campaign. ]
[ No company can ignore too many people that say "I want to ]
[ give you my money." Go ahead and write. -Dan ]
*- ANNOUNCING A WORDPERFECT LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN -*
The WordPerfect Corporation has discontinued all development of Amiga
WordPerfect. The future of your Amiga will depend on and require the
presence of developers with the credibility and ability that WordPerfect
has. Let's not allow companies such as this to give up on the Amiga. I
want you to show your support and need of this software by writing to
WordPerfect at:
WordPerfect Corporate Communications
Attn. Liz Tanner
1555 Technology Way
Orem, UT 84057
Fax (801)-222-2577
In addition I will be sending a petition, containing a list of supporting
names to WordPerfect. To accomplish this, please e-mail me your name,
phone number and e-mail address by February 29, 1992. Please indicate if
you are now a registered owner requiring upgrades or if you are interested
in purchasing the Amiga WordPerfect Software.
Ph 709-834-4340 / // /"| |\/| | /"" |"\ \ mer...@garfield.cs.mun.ca
Merril Locke / \X/ /""| | | | \_T |""\ \ or
Nfld. Canada / Only Amiga makes it possible \ mer...@odie.cs.mun.ca
--
Please see monthly postings for the disclaimer, the introduction, the charter,
and submission instructions. Comments to zer...@cs.ucdavis.edu.
MAIL ALL SUBMISSIONS TO annou...@cs.ucdavis.edu (don't auto-post).
--
Please see monthly postings for the disclaimer, the introduction, the charter,
and submission instructions. Comments to zer...@cs.ucdavis.edu.
MAIL ALL SUBMISSIONS TO annou...@cs.ucdavis.edu (don't auto-post).
Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!purdue!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!
news.iastate.edu!barrett
From: barr...@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <1992Feb17.063557.17913@news.iastate.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 92 06:35:57 GMT
References: <11102@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Sender: n...@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Lines: 44
In article <11...@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> mer...@garfield.cs.mun.ca (Merril Locke)
writes:
>[ The moderator wishes to express his support of this campaign. ]
>[ No company can ignore too many people that say "I want to ]
>[ give you my money." Go ahead and write. -Dan ]
>
>
> *- ANNOUNCING A WORDPERFECT LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN -*
[campaign deleted]
I started a letter-writing campaign on CompuServe about four years
ago, after WordPerfect first announced that they were cutting development
of Amiga WordPerfect. I posted sample letters to the Amiga D/L areas
that people could print out, sign, and mail to WP Corp., kept in touch
with the VP of WP via e-mail, and mailed letters to two Amiga magazines
(which were printed) urging people to write.
This letter campaign worked, to an extent. WP agreed not to
completely eliminate Amiga development, but would keep a few programmers
to continue development. They would then look at how sales go, and would
decide later whether to increase Amiga development or cut it altogether.
In short, sales never did increase to the point that WP Corp. could
reinstate full development of Amiga WP. It is hard not to see why.
In the years since my letter campaign succeeded in forcing WP to
continue development of their Amiga port, Commodore's U.S. sales fell from
$220 Million/year to $110 Million/year. Since WP is a U.S. company, and
has few distribution channels outside North America, WP is dependent on
the Amiga base in North America to sell Amiga WP.
The point of all of this is: give it up. There is nothing that we
Amiga users can do anymore to get WP Corp. to support the Amiga. The
only people who can do anything to get WP to again develop Amiga software
are the people at Commodore. As long as Amiga sales in North America
continue to drop, economic reality will not make it possible for WP to
make money from development and sales of Amiga WP.
>Ph 709-834-4340 / // /"| |\/| | /"" |"\ \ mer...@garfield.cs.mun.ca
>Merril Locke / \X/ /""| | | | \_T |""\ \ or
>Nfld. Canada / Only Amiga makes it possible \ mer...@odie.cs.mun.ca
---
| Marc Barrett -MB- | email: barr...@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
New .signature still under contruction.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uunet.ca!geac!maccs!rickan
From: ric...@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Mark Rickan)
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, McMaster University
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1992 19:47:02 GMT
In article <1992Feb17.063557.17...@news.iastate.edu> barr...@iastate.edu
(Marc N Barrett) writes:
> In short, sales never did increase to the point that WP Corp. could
>reinstate full development of Amiga WP. It is hard not to see why.
No, it is not difficult to see why. Aside from any corporate demographics
however, it is quite obvious that the lack of any appreciable sales
increase is entirely due to the fact that WordPerfect devoted very little
in terms of the development and marketing of the Amiga version. Porting an
outdated, arcane PC implementation to a non-standard Amiga application is
not the most effective means of earning revenue. Like many people, I
anxiously awaited the 5.0/5.1 upgrade.
>In the years since my letter campaign succeeded in forcing WP to
>continue development of their Amiga port, Commodore's U.S. sales fell from
>$220 Million/year to $110 Million/year. Since WP is a U.S. company, and
>has few distribution channels outside North America, WP is dependent on
>the Amiga base in North America to sell Amiga WP.
Somehow I have a hard time believing that your letter campaign 'forced' WP
to continue development of their Amiga port. Aside from maintenance upgrades
and a half-hearted print preview facility, the Amiga version has largely
remained unchanged.
As for attributing the decision to U.S. sales and the WP distribution network,
I find this position to be rather inane. As the PC version attests, the program
is available virtually anywhere and provisions have been made for international
product support. If WP is incapable of establishing such networks, then they
simply don't deserve the market.
> The point of all of this is: give it up. There is nothing that we
>Amiga users can do anymore to get WP Corp. to support the Amiga.
I don't imagine that this effort will lead to an increased interest in Amiga
development, but it will indicate to the company that there are a large
number of registered users that find this situation to be lamentable. Sending
upgrade notices for MS-DOS releases is not particularly gratifying. If they
have no intention of supporting the established user base, then the least
they can do is sell off the rights to the current version.
>The only people who can do anything to get WP to again develop Amiga software
>are the people at Commodore.
Sheesh. When all else fails, use Commodore as a scapegoat.
>As long as Amiga sales in North America continue to drop, economic reality
>will not make it possible for WP to make money from development and sales of
>Amiga WP.
And as long as software development companies attempt to market inferior
products to an established community, users will refrain from filling their
coffers. Caveat emptor.
Mark
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Mark Rickan ...!uunet!utai!utgpu!maccs!rickan -
- DCSS, McMaster University ric...@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!tulane!rouge!dano
From: d...@usl.edu (Dan Stephenson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <dano.698477685@nasa15.usl.edu>
Date: 19 Feb 92 05:34:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: nasa15.dano.698477685
References: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Sender: a...@usl.edu (Anonymous NNTP Posting)
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Lines: 26
ric...@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Mark Rickan) writes:
>In article <1992Feb17.063557.17...@news.iastate.edu> barr...@iastate.edu
>(Marc N Barrett) writes:
>> In short, sales never did increase to the point that WP Corp. could
>>reinstate full development of Amiga WP. It is hard not to see why.
>No, it is not difficult to see why. Aside from any corporate demographics
That's what he said.
_dan
.
>Mark
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>- Mark Rickan ...!uunet!utai!utgpu!maccs!rickan -
>- DCSS, McMaster University ric...@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca -
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
---Daniel Anthony Stephenson d...@nasa15.usl.edu
Q: Why can't Jesus eat M&Ms?
A: Because they keep falling through the holes in his hands.
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!att!fang!
occrsh!mndcrme!bn
From: b...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu (Bo Najdrovsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <bn.005j@mndcrme.uoknor.edu>
References: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
<dano.698477685@nasa15.usl.edu>
Date: 21 Feb 92 21:01:38 CST
Organization: No organization... just my Amiga 3000/25 running UUCP 1.15D
In article <dano.698477...@nasa15.usl.edu> d...@usl.edu (Dan Stephenson) writes:
>
>>No, it is not difficult to see why. Aside from any corporate demographics
>
>That's what he said.
I find it hard to believe that company such as SAS institute found the
Amiga market profitable (with a HIGHLY vertical market product... not
everyone is a C programmer) while at the same time they droped their MS
DOS product, and Word Perfect determined that Amiga is not profitable. If I
were management at WP, I think I would look a bit closer to home for the
problems, and not blame the Amiga market instantly. Successful Amiga
vendors also seem to find the Amiga market profitable, and they usually
don't have half as many resources as WP Corp. does.
I believe that if WP came out with a new version of WP which is truely
an Amiga word processor with the power of WP for DOS, they could easily
take over the Amiga wordprocessing market. I know for fact that I would
buy one; I have still not found a program which generates suitable output
(ProWrite 3.2 output sucks) so I am still forced to use my trusy ol' DME
text editor, and then import the ASCII text into my wonderful PageStream
2.2 where I have to go through the formating procedure. While I don't mind
doing this on major projects (such as papers for school) I certainly don't
like doing it for simple letters that I type. Perhaps this letter writing
campaign will change WP's mind.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bo Najdrovsky b...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu OR b...@mndcrme.uucp| // |
| OR att.att.com!occrsh!mndcrme!bn | // |
| "..so take this number, and welcome to Operation Mindcrime" | \X/ AMIGA |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!qdpii!davidme
From: davi...@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn)
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.083829.10341@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au>
Organization: Qld Dept Primary Industries
References: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
<dano.698477685@nasa15.usl.edu> <bn.005j@mndcrme.uoknor.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 08:38:29 GMT
Lines: 42
In article <bn.0...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu> b...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu (Bo Najdrovsky)
writes:
>
> I find it hard to believe that company such as SAS institute found the
>Amiga market profitable (with a HIGHLY vertical market product... not
>everyone is a C programmer) while at the same time they droped their MS
>DOS product, and Word Perfect determined that Amiga is not profitable.
The Amiga market is a bit different from other platforms. Firstly, it's split
into two separate markets - the game players with their A500s, and the more
serious users with their AX000s (X=1,2,3). These "serious" users are not the
crowd of PC owners who take work home and spend their time word processing or
spreadsheeting. Nothey represent a couple of niche markets, mainly the
video types, and good, old-fashioned, hackers (programmers, computer
enthusiasts, whatever).
Now, te game players are unlikely to buy a word processor that cost more
than their computer. What's needed is a cheap, simple WP that can be run on
a single drive system with 512k. WordPerfect don't sell such a product on
any platform. To run WP 5.1, you need a hard drive. The people with suitable
systems fall into the "serious" category, but these people are unlikely to
want to spend a lot on word processor. They'd buy a good cheap one, sure,
but WordPerfect would have to charge enough to make money in this very small
market (remember that the 2,500,000+ A500's don't count here).
But, as for C compilers - there exists a core of Amiga enthusiasts whose
main use for the machine is programming it. Most of these people have higher-
end machines, and are quite prepared to pay for a development system. This
represents a market where profits can be made, since piracy is low, the cost
of compilers is relatively high, and little advertising is needed.
As for myself, I own SAS/C, but no word processor. When I need to write
something, I use CygnusEd, which I also paid for. If word processing really
is needed, I take the text file into work, using CrossDOS, which I paid for
as well. The software I've bought is useful to me, but I couldn't justify
a $300 word processor.
--
David Meiklejohn | Internet : davi...@qdpii.comp.qpdi.oz.au
Computer Systems Officer, QDPI | Fax : +61 70 92 3593
Mareeba, Australia | Voice : +61 70 92 1555
Path: sparky!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Message-ID: <28645@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 26 Feb 92 05:21:11 GMT
References: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
<dano.698477685@nasa15.usl.edu> <bn.005j@mndcrme.uoknor.edu>
Reply-To: da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 40
In article <bn.0...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu> b...@mndcrme.uoknor.edu (Bo Najdrovsky)
writes:
> I find it hard to believe that company such as SAS institute found the
>Amiga market profitable (with a HIGHLY vertical market product... not
>everyone is a C programmer) while at the same time they droped their MS
>DOS product,
I don't know what SAS used for their decision making, but a few things come to
mind. Starting back at Lattice, the market for the 68000 compilers had a few
advantages. Sure, the PClown market was large, but there was much more
competition. The Amiga market had at only one other C compiler, and I can't
help but believe that Lattice managed through whatever means to get better
compiler people on their 68000 projects than their 8086 projects. After all,
which would you rather have to write a compiler for? Lattice got the point
were is did better than Greenhills on the Sun, the compiler the OS group had
veen using. On the other hand, Lattice started out as a big name in the
MS-DOS market, but was quickly overtaken by folks like MicroSoft and Borland.
You can only believe these other guys did a better job.
>and Word Perfect determined that Amiga is not profitable.
Word Perfect walked into an Amiga market without a wordprocessor, and offered
an pretty good 1970s-style wordprocessor. They sold quite a few, I even got
it. However, before long there were real 1980s-style wordprocessors around,
like ProWrite and Excellence!. Word Perfect chose not to compete, apparently
thinking that their name would continue to sell, although they knew better
than to make the same mistake in the text-oriented MS-DOS market. Go figure.
Obviously, that approach didn't work. I really wanted to keep recommending
Word Perfect, I think they're a decent company. But as it could never even do
what I needed, I couldn't recommend it (if anyone's asking, I do most of my
writing in ProPage/ProDraw -- computer design is a symbolic activity. Lately
I have used Final Copy for simple one-pagers).
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh BIX: hazy
"I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused" - Elvis Costello
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!math.fu-berlin.de!unidui!flyer!public!peterk
From: pet...@public.sub.org (Peter Kittel)
Subject: Re: WordPerfect Letter Writing Campaign
Organization: Public News & Mailserver, Commodore Germany PM UNIX, Frankfurt
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 08:14:50 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.081450.25493@public.sub.org>
References: <1992Feb17.194702.9391@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
<dano.698477685@nasa15.usl.edu> <bn.005j@mndcrme.uoknor.edu>
<1992Feb24.083829.10341@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au>
davi...@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn) writes:
>As for myself, I own SAS/C, but no word processor. When I need to write
>something, I use CygnusEd, which I also paid for. If word processing really
>is needed, I take the text file into work, using CrossDOS, which I paid for
>as well.
Well, normally I write my letters on a PC (you know we sell those things
also). But when I have to write on my Amiga, I pull out my self-written
text system and use that. It's from 1980 and has its origins on the
PET 2001 :-). I managed to port it to PCs as well to Amiga. And I *have*
to use it when I need some special features that I can easily add by some
lines of code, or when I really need to know what bytes go into the final
file. But then, I seem to be the single person on earth that is able to
use this proggie.
And WordPerfect? Well, I once had it on my HD, must have been one of the
first Amiga versions. Crashes every minute, undocumented features in
printer drivers so that I was not able to make up one for my own printer,
and then I deleted it from my HD.
--
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions...
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk