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    COMMODORE RISES FROM THE DEAD
   By Guy Kewney, Newswireless.net


21st February 2006 15:56 GMT


    The Chickenhead company,
Commodore, chose 3GSM to launch into
the mobile games business as a
distributor. So, what is a Chicken-
head? It's the popular name for the
Commodore logo. And why is that a
"mobile media provider"? Ah, that's
quite a story! - it goes like this...

    Refugee Jack Tramiel escapes the
gas chambers, comes to New York and
starts a typewriter business. He wants
to call it IBM, or something like
that, and decides CBM is as close as
he can get. He calls it Commodore
Business Machines. IBM typewriters
are, of course, the market leaders at
the time. Gradually, Tramiel gets into
electronics and becomes a calculator
pioneer.

    Tramiel finds himself caught up in
the early microcomputer revolution,
and releases the PET (Personal
Electronic Transactor) in 1977. It's
an integrated unit, with a keyboard,
display, and audio tape drive. Sells
for $600 or so, snapped up by the new
geek generation (curiously, all male!)
of personal computer enthusiasts,
since rival products are around
$3,000. With the cash, Tramiel
launches the VIC-20 and then the
Commodore 64 - both aimed at the games
market.

    One of his biggest rivals in that
market was Atari. When Tramiel fell
out with the Commodore board in 1983,
and they fired him (he resigned,
whatever...) he revenged himself by
setting up as his own rival.

    Putting his sons on the board, and
developing the TOS (Tramiel Operating
System), he inspired the very
successful Atari ST home/business
range. Commodore responded by
launching the even better Amiga, which
was the ultimate games machine, but
eventually, both companies ended up
producing IBM PC clones (there was a
very nasty dispute about who owned the
Amiga chips, because Jack did a deal
with the designers, but they took the
view he'd been wearing his Commodore
hat when they signed).

    Commodore went bust 1994, and was
successively examined by a procession
of prospective buyers, all prime
candidates for "titsup of the year",
starting with Escom in Germany, before
Tulip acquired it. Tulip did nothing
with it until 2004 when it tried to
rival the iPod by branding the fPET
range with the Commodore name.

    Last year, Yeahronimo bought the
name, and now, it's using it to "get
into mobile media content" as
Commodore Gaming.

    Will this finally succeed? "The
new Commodore wants to connect the
stylish age to innovative, basic but
beautiful futuristic design concepts
which are active and interactive..."
said the corporate pointy-haired boss.
"These products enable us to deliver a
comprehensive digital media solution
to our customers..."

    Not good, not encouraging. What
about the business?

    A quick check of its announcements
recently shows it is mainly concerned
with mergers and acquisitions. There's
no information at all on the
"financials page" from which you could
glean an understanding of what it
sells, or to whom - apart from the
helpful pointer to Nasdaq - which
shows the stock price, but otherwise
says: "There is no annual fundamental
data for this company."

    Doesn't sound like a big "Yes! A
Winner!" Really...


[DAVE'S COMMENTS:] Somewhere -- many
wheres -- there are eight guys and
gals in a small conference room. They
know two things:

 1. Two of them will be fired at
    Christmas, just like two of them
    were hired last January.

 2. Their somewhat overpaid jobs
    depend on appearing productive.

    Appearance is all that matters,
because these guys and gals are
responsible for launching new techno
gadgets into the commercial consumer
electronics malestrom. One such
gimcrack will hit it big, make their
company a zillion dollars, and earn
these marketeers a bonus, a raise, and
a promotion to a truly overpaid
position.

    The downside, the downside that
keeps these eight people awake at
night and plays hob with their sex
lives, is that a hundred other
companies have eight guys and gals
doing exactly the same thing for
exactly the same reason. Ten of these
ventures will not be fiascos. Twenty
will not be total failures. The rest
will wind up in the electronics
clearance catalogs at bargain prices.

    And two of the eight will be on
the street at Christmas. Which two?
The two that cause problems, ask fool
questions, and generally use their
noggins. They will cause problems by
doing research that does not support
the current thinking of the group.
They will ask questions like, "Is the
Commodore Brand [realy] worth $20
Million? They will have this strange
notion that consumers are real people,
not sheep, who buy things because of
what is inside, not the label on the
outside.

    So -- what would you do? I, for
one, would find a different like of
work, one that is somewhat underpaid
but has an iron-clad tenure policy
(like being a clergy in the United
Methodist Church). But I am probably
the exception. The lure of money and
power is tantalizing. And hey, six of
us will be here next January. Right?

    The company statement above has
all the right words in all the right
places. It sounds well considered,
even brainy. Until you dig through it
looking for meaning. And there is
none.

    The word "solution" is used. In
fact, "solution" is about the only IT
(Information Technology) term used in
the entire mission statement. Help me!
Anyone! What is a "solution!" In the
world of computers, we have ideas, we
have answers, we have elegant and
kludge. But none of these really
"solve" anything. Perhaps in business
settings, where a certain system must
accomplish some data manipulation
before the company goes bust, a
"solution" would be in order. But this
company is connecting "stylish to
innovative, basic but beautiful
futuristic design concepts" ..ad
nauseum, which might make an iPod that
looks cool. But it will not SOLVE
anyones problems.

    Except for maybe six of those
eight guys and gals in that small
conference room, whose "comprehensive
digital media solution" is to have a
job come Christmas.

    Jack Tramiel was an entrepreneur.
He didn't need solutions. He needed a
product to sell. He needed to blow TI
out of the computer market. And he
succeeded -- because he knew what he
wanted.

    Irving Gould wanted Commodore to
become a Fortune 500 company. He
almost succeeded, but the cost was the
company itself.

    And now flapocrats want the
Chicken Lips to give them a
comprehensive solution. It won't, no
matter how much they tell each other
it is so.

    So much for the real power of
brand names and intellectual property
rights.

 DMM