Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott
Yes various factors were involved, but it didn't take all of them to seal the Amiga's fate. Just B by itself was enough, and would have needed a herculean effort by Commodore to overcome. But when Commodore bought Amiga Inc. they were not in good shape financially or organizationally. Considering their handicaps and the unfinished state of the Amiga when they acquired it, I think they did quite well to get it out within a year. They then took 2 years to finish the OS, which is line with industry expectations (average time for Microsoft to produce a new version of Windows was 2-3 years).
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I think you are overly sympathetic with the Commodore defense. Sure they did some good work but given what they had (the A1000, or even 2 years later) Commodore should have been at least been able to stay alive or relevant with Amiga. Be it games, graphics, business or whatever. But it doesn't seem Commodore had any idea what to target or what to commit to really. Say it was office/productivity for example. Then they failed with distribution, support, volume licensing and all that stuff business and corporations demand. Even software licensing. Just license Lotus 123 and be done with it if that was your market. Isn't it nearly always the software that sells the hardware not the other way round. Regardless of how good it is. They also had a line of IBM compatibles going which sounds like almost the were competing against themselves half the time. It's not just about Commodore though either. There was even still a small chance for Amiga to 'thrive' after Commodore. But the way it was sold off simply to the highest bidder, one who had no idea of the Amiga culture or customer base or with no vision for the product ended all that almost completely.