17 Bit Software 2: Collection B/17Bit_Collection_B.iso/files/1479.dms/1479.adf/Text/JuneComdex

Text File | 1987-06-01 | 8.3 KB | 184 lines

Sunday, 31 May.

Perry Kivolowitz of ASDG dropped into CO and told us he had just returned from
Comdex. He asked if we wanted to hear some quick news. The following is a
heavily edited transcript of the comments pertinent to Comdex. Nothing germaine
to Comdex has been left out. The 'Q:' denotes a question from one of the people
in CO at the time, without regard to who it came from. Since this was
completely informal and off the cuff, it had a lot of non-essential chatter,
thus the editing. Comments in square brackets are mine.

Larry Phillips.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perry: Only three board type makers were there.
        CSA - Byte by BYte and Us.

Allen Riker of CSA (ceo and pres) is a great guy who grew up near my
wife's family. Irving Gould looks exactly like he did in the Wall
Street Journal and gave a rousing speech on returning to CBM basic
(supporting user groups and 3rd parties - training for dealers.
He said a lot of mistakes have been made in the US and the coming months
will show a complete turn around. Al Duncan can do it - Gould thinks -
who knows - he's propbably right - Rich McIntyre (sp) gave a very long
presentation on all of the areas that the 500 and 2000 will/can fill -
including desktop presentation/publishing/video and educational and
industrial applications. The 500 was pushed for the home while the 2000
was pushed for everything else.

Q: Were delivery dates announced? Was it in private or public?

Perry: The announced due dates are for the 500 - now - they've started shipping
demo models to the dealers. And July for the A2000.  All this in front of 260
dealers.

Q: Did you get a chance to talk to Al Duncan or Rich McIntyre?

Perry: They immediately went under cover but Irving Gould was readily available
and loved to talk - also Henri Rubin was also there and quite open to approach
- In those two men you have the #1 and #2 of CBM world operations.

Q: Did they say anything about the future of the A1000?

Perry: A1000 was never mentioned.

Perry: A new frame grabber was shown by NYIT (new york institute of tech )
located on long island - nyit has a graphics lab that has been breaking new
ground for years (though not much lately since lucasfilm raided them a few
years ago - I use > used to pursue a phd in graphics so I knew those guys)
anyway - it is a combo frame grabber - genlock (on one card) for the 2000. It
was shown in prototype form - read that test bench protoype - like they were
working on it the night before - but it works fine.

Anyway - this is the endorsed product by CBM (completely unofficially) - it
kicks Amiga Live! up and down the street and back again.

I did not get a chance to determine the status (future) of the combo
genlock/frame grabber as I had my hands full at my own booth. However, heres a
really meaty piece of news.....

 It seems every where we go we always get the booth next to Mimetics. They
showed a genlock that I have know idea if it was there product or not but it
was tiny (about the size of a larger mouse) and fit right on to the video
connecter. It seems to have some superior featrures to the amiga genlock though
I have no idea how it stacks up aginst the nyit genlock/frame grabnber. (sorry
about the typeing - I am trying to go fast)

Also, the brandnew microfiche like data base was there - that was a very well
done product - There were some games being shown for the first time but I
didn't get to see them - Word perfect is being premiered publicly tomorrw on
the show floor.  Every person who saw facc (our new software gizmo) dropped
their jaw. That was good. It was really strange not to see a single slap on the
side board maker in attendence.

There was a company showing Station Manager which they just finished - Station
Manager was announced a long time ago but is now shipping - it was great in
that it allowed significantly more sophisticated presentation graphics than
anything previously announced.

 There were 260 dealers in attendence as well as all of CBM's rep companies.
There were two videos shown which might be the makings of some very impressive
tv commercials (finally).  Basically a high preasure fast paced montage of all
sorts of amiga screens (3d graphics/ spread sheets) going at about 8 frames per
second with some very strong

[an interruption here... Perry continues...]

 The music was very fast paced no voice overs at all except for the
last fade to black and then god himself says ``Only Amiga''.
It was very powerful.

The over all impression is that CBM will make a very strong effort in the US
and in general in the world. The effort will include as I mentioned before -
increased presence in the media as well as more support for user group
activites and 3rd party developers. The capabilities of the new management of
US operations seem to have been tested and honed in other countries making CBM
(in other countries) a dominating computer seller. They maintain that this will
be true in the us once again. Also - one thing that was stressed was Solution
Selling - in other words expect to see the Amiga pushed into niche markets
where it has not been before. A500 and 2000 dates are now for the 500 and July
for the 2000.

These Commercials were first drafts - I don't know what distribution plans CBM
has.

Here's an interesting tid bit...

Scott Peterson (pres of Byte By Byte) came up to me and said....
So, whats the story? Are you really going to produce the 2000-and-1?
You know, the whole industry is waiting to see what you do.''

I thought that was a great compliment - but no we did not have a 2000-and 1 to
show - however, we have been saying Winter all along - at this point it might
be sooner - the fact is everyone IS waiting for the 2000-and-1. We will not
make you wait too long "-)

Here's another interesting comment....

 When I told Allen Riker about the 2000-and-1 (while standing next to a turbo
tower) I mentioned that it would differ from the tower in that it would have
old style zorro slots as well as the new ones....he replied....oh, that's a
novel idea.''

Q: How much of a presence did CBM show at Comdex?

Perry: CBM booth was the size of rhode island. :-)
The booth is large enough to hold a couple of dozen stations. The booth in fact
is the combinations of TWO former commodore booths.

Q: Will CBM be at CES?

Perry:  CBM IS at CES..they split there forces and sent a small contingent to
CES - the bigger by far is at Comdex. The party they threw was great tooooooo.

Q: How does the CSA Tower look?

Perry: Tower is a very solid, competently designed product as are all of CSA's
products. You'll see that it is quite aptly named, however :-)

Q: Does CBM plan on attending AmiExpo?

Perry: CBM will have a major pres`+'!p`%p@(h 80+u)u_Z 22(?pX 2 #paprh%p*'p* "#////upxh-pis don't know him? Good Ol'Hedley - he's
one of the most ingenious attention dogers around - he can avoid notoriety with
the best of them - he also happens to be one of the key engineering types. He's
likes to keep a very low profile however.

Gail Wellington was in t shirt and sneakers. That was interesting considering
her usual business attire (very smart, conservative). She was directing traffic
and coordinating the whole affair. She is the international product manager I
believe.

Aegis was there in force - you know - I didn't notice EA at all - I wonder
if they were there. Newtek was there in force.

Q: What were most of the visitors to your booth interested in?

Facc. To tell the truth - very few dealers had ever heard of the hardware
company ASDG - though everyone knew of the recoverable ram disk :-)
This is in keeping with the general approach we've been taking anyway.

Charlie Heath was there - but I don't think he had a booth. (Txed fame)

Also Meridian software was showing there latest stuff - Zing Keys is quite
nice.

Rich Miner (of Zoxso? and the univ of lowel was there but also I don't
think he had a booth).

Q: Zing keys? A fuction key utility?

Perry: Yes - zing keys is everything one would want
in a keyboard manager it appears - though I did not get a close look at it
on the balance - but it looked good - those guys are quite hardworking
competent guys. (frank and jerry)

Micro Illusions was there with their stuff. A lot of little places no one
ever heard were there - you are in for some really nice stuff in the months
to come.

Anyway - I need to sleep.

good night and thank you!

[ Thank you Perry!]